Windows Visa: The depression sets in

[Jetsetlemming]

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
:(:(:(
Everything I hear about Vista reminds me more and more of Windows ME. I had thought MS had learned their lesson when they changed how they worked with XP, but no, they've gone and went back to churning out DRM clogged, Baby proofed, unstable, glitchy, bloated shit.
Again.
They unstable glitchy bloat can be fixed. The baby proofing can be removed with risk by third parties.
The subject of the above article is the giant gaping chest wound in the OS, left when the RIAA and MPAA.

[ZaichikArky]

The best OS out right now is some random bootleg XP one.

That is some mighty huge webpage that I won't read. Hopefully vista will stop sucking sometime. Or maybe Microsoft will give up and create some new OS at a later period.

[Angelyne]

Read this article awhile ago, and am kind of pissed that none of these issues were mentioned in the mainstream media coverage of Vista's release. I plan on using Windows XP for as long as possible.

The hardware requirements alone are just ridiculous. A DRM program should not take up 159,000K of memory. (http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/3056/mfpmpam5.jpg) It's fundamentally wrong to force people to upgrade their hardware just to be able to run an OS.

[Jetsetlemming]

Zaichikarky, did you seriously just post in the thread to say the topic is too long to read? Kindly go fuck yourself and keep your mouth shut if you all you have to say is "I refuse to read this but I'm posting in it anyway".
Angelyne, I've got the same plan. Considering I don't have near the hardware capabilities to use Vista exclusive software, I don't think I'll suffer much sticking with XP. Talk of a hack on DX10 to fit it on XP has been a frantic topic on a lot of geek boards I visit. Considering it's the one and only thing about Vista that looks worthwhile, it certainly would be great to just have it (not that I can run any of it's new features either :P).
I'm not at all a fan of most of the new anti-piracy methods. CD checks were annoying. Safe disc and Securom were mistrustful, but tolerable. Starforce, Vista's "Premium content" protection, Trusted Computing.... I refuse to take part in any of it, and I tell anyone who gives me half an ear to do the same, especially Trusted Computing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing

[MNJetter]

I wonder if the new version of Windows Media Player is the result of Windows Vista coming out. If so, and if anti-piracy stuff is seriously a problem, that might explain my problem. I downloaded the new version of WMP, and suddenly I can't play any of the songs that I (legally) downloaded (and paid for!) from Napster, or the song that I downloaded legally from Evanescence's website, authorized by the fact that I bought the CD.

Ironically, the couple of songs that I have downloaded illegally work just fine. Some security program. :P

Maybe I should just re-download my legal downloads from BitTorrent, and then maybe they'll work.

[Kass]

Read this article awhile ago, and am kind of pissed that none of these issues were mentioned in the mainstream media coverage of Vista's release. I plan on using Windows XP for as long as possible.

The hardware requirements alone are just ridiculous. A DRM program should not take up 159,000K of memory. (http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/3056/mfpmpam5.jpg) It's fundamentally wrong to force people to upgrade their hardware just to be able to run an OS.

What media are you paying attention to? I'm curious what media don't think this is a story. That's pretty poor judgment on their part really.

This stuff has been all over the news for the last week. WTOP has had stories on it every hour and they pull thier news from the major networks and wire services. The TV news had stories on it. It's been in the newspapers. It just isn't front page news. You have to flip to the technology sections.


As for Vista being buggy, it's the first release of the software. Of course it is buggy. The first release of most software is buggy. The first thing you have to do when you install most programs is immediately download the patches. It's going to take a little while to work out the bugs. Vista won't become commonplace until people start replacing their PCs in the natural lifecycle of their usefulness. The hardware upgrades are a PITA.

[Trump]

I'll probably wait until mid-summer (northern hemisphere) before even considering it.

[blank slate]

I'll wait to see how the whole DRM thing works out. I refuse to install an OS that has THAT much DRM and was seemingly made for content providers rather than the end user. I'll stick with Windows XP for now.

If MS continues down this route and doesn't change its ways, then I'll just migrate on over to Linux once XP is no longer a viable option.

[c-rex]

What media are you paying attention to? I'm curious what media don't think this is a story. That's pretty poor judgment on their part really.

The media is fear mongering that I could use Vista's speech reconigition program to play a sound file through your speakers, have your microphone pick it up and execute the commands. For example I could put a sound file on my webpage that opens up a command line, inserts FORMAT C:, hit enter and then types YES. This is about as retarded as it gets since you'd need a good set of speakers and micrphone for the sound to even be recongizable to the computer, and it only works if you are running as admin. Also I could do the same thing in theory with XP's speech reconigition (if it worked) or any of the third party programs that do the same thing.

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=418

Right now I have two Vista boxes up and running and I have to say it is pretty sweet.

[ZylitoL]

Read this article awhile ago, and am kind of pissed that none of these issues were mentioned in the mainstream media coverage of Vista's release. I plan on using Windows XP for as long as possible.

The hardware requirements alone are just ridiculous. A DRM program should not take up 159,000K of memory. (http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/3056/mfpmpam5.jpg) It's fundamentally wrong to force people to upgrade their hardware just to be able to run an OS.

Quoted for great justice.

I'm sticking with XP. I don't need Vista since I won't be playing games anymore (at least, not the next gen ones that need a $1800 GFX card), and for everything else XP is just fine.

Like many(smart) people, I'll be switching when the cost of making the switch doesn't break my wallet, as well as when 7000 bugs and glitches have been found, and resolved.

Will never move to Macs, and probably won't switch to Linux either.

[SlickWilly440]

Yeah I tried Windows Vista Business edition (32 bit), which I got from my school. After I installed it the Aero Glass theme took up all my computers system resources, but when I switched to the classic theme my available resources went back down. I didn't test out any games or anything, but everytime you try to open a program a Win Pop Up ask if you want to confirm this action. You can turn this annoying thing off in the User Account. In the end I just reinstall Win Xp Pro. By the way my comp is a 3.0 GHZ P4 HT, 1 gb 400mhz ram, 128 gforce 5200 agp. That Aero Glass theme is hungry for resources!

[Cherub Rock]

I wonder if the new version of Windows Media Player is the result of Windows Vista coming out. If so, and if anti-piracy stuff is seriously a problem, that might explain my problem. I downloaded the new version of WMP, and suddenly I can't play any of the songs that I (legally) downloaded (and paid for!) from Napster, or the song that I downloaded legally from Evanescence's website, authorized by the fact that I bought the CD.

Ironically, the couple of songs that I have downloaded illegally work just fine. Some security program. :P

Maybe I should just re-download my legal downloads from BitTorrent, and then maybe they'll work.

You'll find that these types of programs tend to hurt the people not breaking the law more than the people who are.

Pirates will always find a way to work around issues like DRM. Microsoft can spend millions trying to protect their content, but it's not going to last. In the end it will be a big hassle to people like yourself and a minor one to the people pirating their music, movies and whatnot.

Besides, if you want to play music and WMP won't do it anymore then you can just download iTunes, Winamp or a dozen other media players. Videos work better on Media Player Classic.

[ZaichikArky]

Zaichikarky, did you seriously just post in the thread to say the topic is too long to read? Kindly go fuck yourself and keep your mouth shut if you all you have to say is "I refuse to read this but I'm posting in it anyway".


Pretty much, yeah :D.

What's more amusing, however, is that I knew you'd be a little bitch from that one post. Go hump some tombstones instead, it'll be more fun for you than ejaculating to the latest windoze OS.

[Kass]

ZaichikArky, knock it off. If you aren't actually participating in the discussion, you don't need to post and be nasty about it.

Jetsetlemming, you don't need to be responding in kind.

[Jetsetlemming]

It'll take some willpower, but I think I'll manage. :bored:
What media are you paying attention to? I'm curious what media don't think this is a story. That's pretty poor judgment on their part really.

This stuff has been all over the news for the last week. WTOP has had stories on it every hour and they pull thier news from the major networks and wire services. The TV news had stories on it. It's been in the newspapers. It just isn't front page news. You have to flip to the technology sections.

Do you mean the media is talking about general Vista problems? Or the Digital Rights Management software hard-encoded fully throughout every aspect of Vista that makes the system less stable on purpose (tilt bits), makes some monitor and speaker cables not work on purpose (S/PDIF and component cables), makes older hardware completely incompatible with Vista on purpose (locking out of legacy hardware and drivers due to non-DRM conformance), making open source hardware and drivers history on purpose (to prevent reverse engineering on the DRM hardware processes), making anyone who creates hardware or software for it pay other third parties like Intel for the usage of methods and programs used in it's DRM in order to be compatible (HDCP, etc.), giving Hollywood companies veto power over new hardware's specs before allowing it to work with Vista (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#hardware)?
The basic point is that, besides all the growing pains Vista has in bugs and glitches, the accidental stuff, there is one big system incorporated throughout the entire OS on purpose, which greatly reduces stability, compatibility, performance, and ease of usage, in the name of protecting "Premium content", HD-DVD's and Blu-Ray discs, which are already being pirated and torrented anyway.
I've yet to see any news article on Vista's Premium content protection.

[Jetsetlemming]

You'll find that these types of programs tend to hurt the people not breaking the law more than the people who are.

Pirates will always find a way to work around issues like DRM. Microsoft can spend millions trying to protect their content, but it's not going to last. In the end it will be a big hassle to people like yourself and a minor one to the people pirating their music, movies and whatnot.

Besides, if you want to play music and WMP won't do it anymore then you can just download iTunes, Winamp or a dozen other media players. Videos work better on Media Player Classic.
I'm an enthusiastic supporter of VLC Media player. It's simple, small, plays every single audio or video file I've tried in it natively, without needing seperate codecs, and is nowhere near as annoying and invasive as WMP.
www.videolan.org/vlc/
I'm sure MS is working hard to get third-party media players restricted or conform to the premium content protection for Vista, though.

[setrict]

I agree. I've been in IT for over a decade now, starting with DOS, Lantastic, Novell, etc. During that time I've dealt, in nauseating detail, with every version of Windows. At each stage I've seen Microsoft release products with equal amounts of both sheer stupidity (registry, I'm looking at you) and innovation (or should I say acquisition). The complexity of each release dwarfs prior versions, which makes the design issues really stand out. Its hard to fully appreciate the combination of complexity and stupid design decisions Microsoft has made unless you've been forced to work on them for a living.

Some of the design is so bad it reminded me of my old Ford Escort back in the 80s. I needed to remove the front bucket seat and put in a replacement. There were four bolts holding the seat in. It took THREE different socket sizes to remove FOUR bolts. That was the first instance where I thought that if there is indeed a hell, engineers will probably be forced to work on equipment of their own design for all eternity. Is it wrong to hope that hell exists?

I've wasted far more of my time dealing with Microsoft's lack of forethought than I have dealing with real technical problems. Eighty percent of what I do should be totally unnecessary. I don't mind fixing technical problems, but when I spend 80% of my time dealing with issues that are the result of poor decsions, lazy programmers or cheap management more willing to sacrifice the time and energy of the thousands of IT staff and millions of users than to actually do a quality job... I get more than a little frustrated. And for the record I'm not exactly an A+ grunt, I've done a considerable amount of programing and even hardware design. I can tell the difference between stupid decision and annoying but technically necessary decision.

For the last few years Microsoft has not only been making some bad design decisions, but has intentionally made the software less 'fixable' in the fight against piracy. Now I get to waste 85% of my time, and gain nothing. Great! Now enter Vista with it's DRM, licensing, intentional restriction of hardware capability, etc.

So how do I feel about Vista? I dunno, I won't be dealing with it anymore. I find Vista unlikely to break the chain I've seen continue since the DOS 3.3 days. I know it will be both better and worse than what came before it, and I just don't care enough anymore. I'm done with MS, and I'm done with related IT. If I wanted to deal with bureaucracy and red tape all day I would have gotten a degree in Business and not Comp Sci.

[ZylitoL]

Yeah I tried Windows Vista Business edition (32 bit), which I got from my school. After I installed it the Aero Glass theme took up all my computers system resources, but when I switched to the classic theme my available resources went back down. I didn't test out any games or anything, but everytime you try to open a program a Win Pop Up ask if you want to confirm this action. You can turn this annoying thing off in the User Account. In the end I just reinstall Win Xp Pro. By the way my comp is a 3.0 GHZ P4 HT, 1 gb 400mhz ram, 128 gforce 5200 agp. That Aero Glass theme is hungry for resources!

I remember a similar problem that first occurred with XP's launch. The XP Theme took up quite a bit of resources (for that time). But of course, developers are going to have to adjust their products to best suit Vista (provided that this isn't a miss-OS like Windows ME). It won't be long before we consider the resources being used to support the AG theme normal.

At least, I think.

For videos, I recommend GOM Player. It's the most stable player available with constant updates, and has all the codecs that you can possibly want, and can even fetch the ones that you need to play a particular video file, if it's some random obscure one.

VLC is very unstable in my experiences, the GUI is antiquated and user unfriendly. IMO.

For audio I use JetAudio because the EQ is off the hook. The interface isn't the greatest but sound quality is very important to me.

[akitaka]

Any OS that needs more than a minimum of 1gb to run smoothly, along with initial bugs and firmware conflicts should never be released OEM, until fully tested and assured that you won't have to spend an extra $100+ on upgrades to be happy with.

I'm also with Setric in that a lot of the functions should NOT be required for the user to modify; defragmenting, background tasks, startup tasks, high-volume updates, etc. and I'm not even a programmer. For better or worse, I've gotten used to it to where other OS' feel somewhat uncomfortable to use (even Mac's user-friendly system). This only gets worse with newer releases that promise "more". Well in terms of an OS, less is more. Efficient coding, limited manual maintenance, and seamless desktop access are important to me, and Vista is just too much. Surly I'll get used to it after some while, but the feeling of caving in is more or less bitter.

[Jetsetlemming]

For anyone who's not very technically inclined and would like a briefer breakdown of the topic of the article, he's a blog post that summerizes the main points nicely, in less technical terms: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/1908
Also, here's a flowchart for those wondering if they should upgrade to Vista:
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/2075/vistaupgradebigwe5.th.jpg :D

[SlickWilly440]

Here is a video covering the Vista Lauch in Japan, it's as insane as the PS3 release, well not really.

Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=LdwFrT2bvp0

[ZylitoL]

I think all those people are, for lack of a better term, lab rats.

Sad truth.

[Plekto]

The angst and pain of upgrading to Vista is quite large.

My take on this is... if you are going to have to reinstall everything, fuytz with drivers, and have half of your old apps not even run(Open GL is axed - won't even run at all, no matter what - it's GONE from the code, for instance)....

Why not just switch to unix? Seriously. Same pain, but once it's fixed, its free and stable.

[Jetsetlemming]

Seriously? OGL is completely gone from Vista? Do you have a source online, a news story or tech journal or something? o_o I can't imagine MS would actively decide to remove support for, for example, the entire ID/Quake/Doom related games?
linux/unix distros tend to not be very stable. My own experiences with Ubuntu were glitchy as fuck and extremely unstable. It fried my Master Boot Record when I tried to uninstall it, too. :( Random is a linux nut, and I remember well a few weeks ago when he updated his linux kernal and bricked his ability to run 3d apps.

[setrict]

Linux is extremely stable when you get it configured properly, but getting to that point requires a time and learning investment beyond what most people are willing to put in. It's like the difference between tennis shoes and a good pair of boots. The boots take longer to break in, but when they do... damn comfortable and will last forever. Of course some times you have to dual boot back to tennis shoes to play a match...

[Random]

JSL: hehe, that's what I got for playing with early pre-alphas, but I fixed it now and it's running smooth again :D
UT04 at 1280x1024, max everything, over 100fps

[Jetsetlemming]

Fuck your fps. :( I can't play UT04 at all because it's only available on DVD (at least, around here. I dunno if there's a 8 CD set of it floating around out there, and I'm NOT downloading 5 GB for a game that might as well be a sport).

[Kenshin]

@setrict: Adding to what you said; when you finally have it just the way you want it, you realize that you can't run the program you want because linux simply doesn't support it.

Not that Windows is any better though.

I've been running Vista Ultimate (RTM version) since the day they released it on torrent (I do have a valid license through the MSDNAA program, but that one only worked for build 5600; I'm waiting for my uni to release both office 2007, and vista.) and yeah, it looks nice, but it's also a resource hog. I've thought about reverting to XP more than once, but I end up deciding against it since it's just too much of a hassle.
The fact that you basically have to buy a new computer for it to run just as XP was running before, doesn't make it more attractive either. (And why do I have to like things that will work better on Vista as well, such as FSX? :()

@Random: O___o. 100 fps? I want your PC...>_>

[Plekto]

The thing is... that Vista IS a big boot you have to break in.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xandros - One that looks like a cheaper alternative. Or you could bite the bullet and if you have to buy a whole new machine anyways, get an Intel-based Mac and go for a dual boot solution - XP/2K Pro native for old stuff or ignore Windows entirely.

It's not free, but then again, a product backed by a company is critical, IMO, if you want updates and real solutions. $40/$80 - includes a wad of apps ready to go as well - no configuring cryptic crap or downloading stuff to get up and running.

[setrict]

@setrict: Adding to what you said; when you finally have it just the way you want it, you realize that you can't run the program you want because linux simply doesn't support it.

That's true for a lot of people, although now it honestly happens in the reverse for me. When I'm on my laptop (xp) I get frustrated by the lack of tools or functionality I've gotten used to having on my desktop machine. It's really what you are used to, and what you do with the machine. If you game at all I think Linux blows. Some games work, and run even better, but it's just not worth the hassle.

Personally I think the best combination for people interested in playing around is to run Linux in a VMware virtual machine (there are preinstalled and configured images around you can download of various distros). Its worth it if for no other reason than being able to surf in the VM risk free. You won't see Linux like performance, or be able to do fancy stuff like beryl/compiz, but it's surprisingly fast for normal apps.

I'm gonna stop now, because I'm starting to feel like one of those pushy advocates that annoy everyone :frypan:

[Plekto]

Or you could install *ix* and intall WinE or something simmilar to emulate 2KPro or simmilar for your games - that should cover 95% of them.

[Jetsetlemming]

Wine in no way covers 95% of windows games. 95% of OpenGL based windows games, maybe.

[whispering]

Wine in no way covers 95% of windows games. 95% of OpenGL based windows games, maybe.
How do you know if a game is OpenGL based?

[Kass]

Any OS that needs more than a minimum of 1gb to run smoothly, along with initial bugs and firmware conflicts should never be released OEM, until fully tested and assured that you won't have to spend an extra $100+ on upgrades to be happy with.


You do realize that back when my family got our first computer, people said that about OSes that took more than 64MB, don't you? Not that I don't agree with you on Vista and all its bugs, but still the whole memory issue is pretty much a simple fact of technology getting still more sophisticated.

Put it in historical context. Twenty years form now, people will probably be whining about how no OS should take more than 10gb to run smoothly. It's interesting to think how what we think is excessive now will likely be woefully inadequate in the not-too-distant future.

[Jetsetlemming]

Most people now with current grade machines are running 512 MB to 1 GB, with plenty of high-end machines having 2 GB or more. 512 MB itself is the recommended memory for running Windows XP- It can run with less, but it's performance will suffer greatly.
Plus, Vista CAN run at 512 MB, too. You just can't enable all those fancy shmancy visual desktop effects. If you don't have a brand new DX9 video card, you can't enable them anyway, so it probably won't bother you much. :P
whispering, it depends on the game. Any game based on a Quake or Doom engine is in OpenGL. Any game based on the Unreal engine defaults to Directx, though you can switch them to OpenGL. A lot older games (~1999 to 2001) let you pick what rendering engine you want. For example, Deus Ex can use DirectX, OpenGL, 3dfx glide, Software rendering, and two other proprietary formats that I've never even heard of. :P

[Riinuka]

Vista has indeed scrapped OpenGL. I believe another codeset takes over for audio rendering, at a lower quality... Can't quite remember. We looked into it at work, but I was sleepy.

I find it funny that 3 Vista machienes bluescreened right out of the box, one to the point of where we had to do a factory settings-reset on it.

*chuckles* One of our registers bluescreened, too.

[The_Penguin]

Read this article awhile ago, and am kind of pissed that none of these issues were mentioned in the mainstream media coverage of Vista's release. I plan on using Windows XP for as long as possible.

The hardware requirements alone are just ridiculous. A DRM program should not take up 159,000K of memory. (http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/3056/mfpmpam5.jpg) It's fundamentally wrong to force people to upgrade their hardware just to be able to run an OS.
Well, what do you think happened before? Win 95 ran on some pretty skimpy hardware requirements by today's standards. Also, you're forgetting that hardware manufacturers will continue to try to out-do each other non-stop, so why not use the resources if they're there?

[The_Penguin]

I'm just curious, but has anyone read a review about Vista that talked in-depth about the sub-systems that that OS has to offer? And please -- for the love of God -- don't give me some shit that you found stating that Vista sucks based on a complete lack of knowledge of the internals.

[The_Penguin]

Angelyne, I've got the same plan. Considering I don't have near the hardware capabilities to use Vista exclusive software, I don't think I'll suffer much sticking with XP. Talk of a hack on DX10 to fit it on XP has been a frantic topic on a lot of geek boards I visit. Considering it's the one and only thing about Vista that looks worthwhile, it certainly would be great to just have it (not that I can run any of it's new features either :P).
XP will be around for some time.
I'm not at all a fan of most of the new anti-piracy methods. CD checks were annoying. Safe disc and Securom were mistrustful, but tolerable. Starforce, Vista's "Premium content" protection, Trusted Computing.... I refuse to take part in any of it, and I tell anyone who gives me half an ear to do the same, especially Trusted Computing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing
Yeh, *lol*, give me a software solution to a piracy problem and I'll give you a crack/hack to it before you utter its name. Software solutions never work, history has shown us that.

[The_Penguin]

Seriously? OGL is completely gone from Vista? Do you have a source online, a news story or tech journal or something? o_o I can't imagine MS would actively decide to remove support for, for example, the entire ID/Quake/Doom related games?
linux/unix distros tend to not be very stable. My own experiences with Ubuntu were glitchy as fuck and extremely unstable. It fried my Master Boot Record when I tried to uninstall it, too. :( Random is a linux nut, and I remember well a few weeks ago when he updated his linux kernal and bricked his ability to run 3d apps.
OpenGL is not even found on XP. You need to install the libraries and shit like that off of the OpenGL site. Anyone will still be able to develop that for Vista, I don't see how you can prevent that.

Besides, anyone heard of windbg?

[Jetsetlemming]

Vista has indeed scrapped OpenGL. I believe another codeset takes over for audio rendering, at a lower quality... Can't quite remember. We looked into it at work, but I was sleepy.

I find it funny that 3 Vista machienes bluescreened right out of the box, one to the point of where we had to do a factory settings-reset on it.

*chuckles* One of our registers bluescreened, too.
http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=34586

And the penguin, keep your shit to one single post, or I'll strangle you with a USB cord.

[The_Penguin]

Wine in no way covers 95% of windows games. 95% of OpenGL based windows games, maybe.
Get Cedega.

[The_Penguin]

http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=34586

And the penguin, keep your shit to one single post, or I'll strangle you with a USB cord.
I'm totally ascared now.

[Duke Luke of Juke]

Don't have a whole lot to add, just thought I should post to say that I've had Vista for about 3 weeks now, and I really like it. Prefer it to XP by far.

[The_Penguin]

For anyone who's not very technically inclined and would like a briefer breakdown of the topic of the article, he's a blog post that summerizes the main points nicely, in less technical terms: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/1908
Nice, a professor commenting on an OS. Hold on... I'll pull some shit out of my lower torso and put it on a blog and make it look 'official'.
Also, here's a flowchart for those wondering if they should upgrade to Vista:
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/2075/vistaupgradebigwe5.th.jpg :D
You're not exactly flattering your intelligence here by posting a preview.

[The_Penguin]

Don't have a whole lot to add, just thought I should post to say that I've had Vista for about 3 weeks now, and I really like it. Prefer it to XP by far.
Well, they have a number of great improvements over XP. They've burried the drivers away from the kernel (making it more stable), the OS also has the ability to utilize a USB as an inbetween for memory and an HD (apps load faster) and there will be a small utility that will log which apps you load when, so that it can pre-load certain apps (apps load even faster.)

The OS just recently came out, so they have an annoying security update thingee, but it'll be worked out in the upcoming patches.

[Angelyne]

Well, what do you think happened before? Win 95 ran on some pretty skimpy hardware requirements by today's standards. Also, you're forgetting that hardware manufacturers will continue to try to out-do each other non-stop, so why not use the resources if they're there?

I'm not quite sure why you're responding to something that I posted over a month ago, but I'll bite...

The steep hardware requirements would be far more tolerable if Vista wasn't a bloated piece of shit that wasted resources on unnecessary DRM. See the screenshot that you quoted off my last post--there is no justification for a required DRM program to use 159,000K of memory. Even though Vista's hardware requirements will eventually be common, that's still no excuse to have that sort of memory hog on any kind of machine.

And that's not even including the fact that Vista intentionally degrades HD quality to prevent piracy. What the hell is the point of having those fancy new resources and hardware if you can't even use them to their fullest extent?

[The_Penguin]

I'm not quite sure why you're responding to something that I posted over a month ago, but I'll bite...
I knew there was a reason why I thought it was a good idea to not post so late while stuffed with sugar.
The steep hardware requirements would be far more tolerable if Vista wasn't a bloated piece of shit that wasted resources on unnecessary DRM. See the screenshot that you quoted off my last post--there is no justification for a required DRM program to use 159,000K of memory. Even though Vista's hardware requirements will eventually be common, that's still no excuse to have that sort of memory hog on any kind of machine.

And that's not even including the fact that Vista intentionally degrades HD quality to prevent piracy. What the hell is the point of having those fancy new resources and hardware if you can't even use them to their fullest extent?
Ok, now I see what you mean.

I don't think that this will be that big of a problem. Like you said, it's a month ago, DRM is something that MS will refine over time and most likely, the bloat will go down.

And as for wasted memory, hmm... not sure I've ever seen anyone at any point say: Wow, such and such OS is awesome at utilizing the resources that it has. Unless we're talking here about a custom compiled Linux kernel with many parts taken out and running XFCE or some other light interface.

[Plekto]

My take is:

REFINE THIS! Seriously, what is this, 1985 and 8-bit computing? Let's all trust them to make something more stable than an Atari 2600 ina few months or YEAR?

I swear - the second you move to unix and see how a crappy P2/600 goes faster than Vista, how it never ever blows up(unless you did something on purpose in which case most OSs would crash), and how the interface is better than Vista. All while running on as little as 256Megs.(ie - that machine you tossed out a year or two ago runs better than your current box with Vista.

Seriosly. We all want a nice car - and MIcrosoft has built this thing that looks like a Pimp My Ride reject. Underneath it's still a freeking 1989 Buick.

Unix is a sleek little Honda Fit. No bling, but god it is fun, inexpensive, and a perfect car/os to get around in.

Lastly, about games...

- Most games today are junk. I bought a good game from last year for $10 last Friday and it was over in 4 hours. Serioiusly. I think I saved or died maybe 8 times in 6 episodes. Shorter and crappier than the Halfilfe 2: Episode 1. Even though I paid $10, I still felt ripped off and like I'd rather have bought a 6 pack of some good ale instead. Hell, a Pizza would have taken longer to digest and left me with a fuller feeling.

- The other reason is darn it if I can't get ANY game lately to run for more than an hour or so without crashing. The code is buggy and the load times are hideous.

Of the last ten games that I bought for my PC, only two are worth the money. $300 or so on games and what do I play? Neverwinter Nights II and Supreme Commander. The rest never even get out of their box. So - it's not like I'm missing widows for games - I only find a dozen from the last three years that I play anymore.

Shoot, I spend more money on PS2 games than PC at this point.

The state of PC gaming is so apalling that I give it not even a reason anymore - no, more like a quarter of one not to just jump ship to unix.

[Jetsetlemming]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I'm gleefully delighted that Plekto, who acts like a computer expert, can't manage to keep his machine running properly to run a computer game properly. :bwitch:
I'm running a bottom of the barrel Dell with a three year old PCI video card and I can play Call of Duty 2 and Far Cry perfectly.

[Angelyne]

I have to agree with Plekto, though, that the state of PC gaming is shitty right now. The local Gamestop/EB's in my area don't even carry PC games anymore beyond a few copies of WoW and the WoW expansion. The few PC games that I have tried recently and enjoyed either came out over a year ago or came from Europe and saw very limited release in the US. I've also been playing a lot of mods of older games, and they are usually far more playable and interesting than the original, un-modded game.

Of the few PC games that I have purchased within the last year, the content was fine but they ran terrible and it took hours of tweaking to make them run efficiently (but I am far more pickier than most about this). It isn't the actual PC's fault that these games run shitty--it's more the fact that companies release these games before all of the bugs are fixed and the game engine has been optimized. It's more profitable to release a semi-broken game and then patch the shit out of it later.

[The_Penguin]

I swear - the second you move to unix and see how a crappy P2/600 goes faster than Vista, how it never ever blows up(unless you did something on purpose in which case most OSs would crash), and how the interface is better than Vista. All while running on as little as 256Megs.(ie - that machine you tossed out a year or two ago runs better than your current box with Vista.

Seriosly. We all want a nice car - and MIcrosoft has built this thing that looks like a Pimp My Ride reject. Underneath it's still a freeking 1989 Buick.
Oh god you're clueless. Do you even know what's 'underneath'?
Unix is a sleek little Honda Fit. No bling, but god it is fun, inexpensive, and a perfect car/os to get around in.
Umm... Linux? No one bothers with Unix any more. It's a little thing that belongs in a museum of software. And no, it's not fun, not stable and the early versions took a herculean effort just to boot.
Lastly, about games...

- Most games today are junk. I bought a good game from last year for $10 last Friday and it was over in 4 hours. Serioiusly. I think I saved or died maybe 8 times in 6 episodes. Shorter and crappier than the Halfilfe 2: Episode 1. Even though I paid $10, I still felt ripped off and like I'd rather have bought a 6 pack of some good ale instead. Hell, a Pizza would have taken longer to digest and left me with a fuller feeling.

- The other reason is darn it if I can't get ANY game lately to run for more than an hour or so without crashing. The code is buggy and the load times are hideous.
GuildWars
EVE <--- kiss your free time goodbye
Medieval II Total War
Age of Empires 3

[The_Penguin]

I have to agree with Plekto, though, that the state of PC gaming is shitty right now. The local Gamestop/EB's in my area don't even carry PC games anymore beyond a few copies of WoW and the WoW expansion. The few PC games that I have tried recently and enjoyed either came out over a year ago or came from Europe and saw very limited release in the US. I've also been playing a lot of mods of older games, and they are usually far more playable and interesting than the original, un-modded game.

Of the few PC games that I have purchased within the last year, the content was fine but they ran terrible and it took hours of tweaking to make them run efficiently (but I am far more pickier than most about this). It isn't the actual PC's fault that these games run shitty--it's more the fact that companies release these games before all of the bugs are fixed and the game engine has been optimized. It's more profitable to release a semi-broken game and then patch the shit out of it later.
You win in this thread about how crappy games can be on a Windows PC.

[Jetsetlemming]

I have to agree with Plekto, though, that the state of PC gaming is shitty right now. The local Gamestop/EB's in my area don't even carry PC games anymore beyond a few copies of WoW and the WoW expansion. The few PC games that I have tried recently and enjoyed either came out over a year ago or came from Europe and saw very limited release in the US. I've also been playing a lot of mods of older games, and they are usually far more playable and interesting than the original, un-modded game.

Of the few PC games that I have purchased within the last year, the content was fine but they ran terrible and it took hours of tweaking to make them run efficiently (but I am far more pickier than most about this). It isn't the actual PC's fault that these games run shitty--it's more the fact that companies release these games before all of the bugs are fixed and the game engine has been optimized. It's more profitable to release a semi-broken game and then patch the shit out of it later.
Agreed, but that's not the fault of windows. :P Like I said: I'm running a very low end system, with a standard installation of windows XP that's about 8 months old, plenty of time to fill with the crud of the average PC experience, and I get two recent big name titles to run PERFECTLY on my computer without any tweaking or fucking around with them. I get 30+ FPS on Call of Duty 2 and Far Cry. On the other hand, Doom 3 and Oblivion look similar in quality to Far Cry, and play at less than a third the framerate (and Oblivion I need the Oldblivion hack to get working, and the game's still buggy, especially with view distance fog and blood and shadows).
The PC game market as a whole is on the tank because of it's ennourmously excessive price compared to console gaming. Just look at the cost of a PC capable of playing Oblivion well compared to the cost of an X-box 360. It shouldn't be that way- Games that look absolutely FANTASTIC on older hardware, such as Far Cry, can look great and run great on cheap computers. The difference is Nvidia and ATI and Intel and AMD are forcing the PC hardware norms as high as possible as fast as possible, as upgrading hardware is how they make their money.
Still, at any rate, it's not because of Windows that a lot of the newer games run poorly, it's due to rushing and laziness in the publishers of the games.

[Black fist]

I want window visa for one reason only, to play mothafucking Halo 2 on the pc.

[Angelyne]

Thread is starting to remind me of this. (http://fuhrerchan.be/ma/src/1157960476967.jpg)

But I kid...I'm tempted to give Linux a serious try--I'd use it over Vista.

[Riinuka]

I'd rather use ME over Vista. *shot*

*half serious*

I need to find a weekend where I can get Ubuntu or something and experiment.

[Jetsetlemming]

I'd rather use ME over Vista. *shot*

*Stabs you*

[Plekto]

Look - I know computers. I've used them for 30 years. More operating systems than most people here could remember or even recognize. I've likely forgotten more about programming than most people woudl ever want to know to begin with short of contemplating jumping off of something. I've fixed them, been a certified technician, run my own consulting firm, and done more looking at the insides than most anyone I know(other than my two best friends who got started when I did - lol). Out of the last 30 years, 24 of them have been other OSs. 6 have been Windows. And it's over. I can learn another OS just like I have a dozen times before.

And Windows is crap. But we all know that already. ;) It's slow, a hideous resource pig(recent tests to see how slow you could get a PC to run on XP proved it - XP runs on a P1 12x slower than windows 3.11 did, based upon CPU load at idle(sometihng like 60% just running the finder). Vista is such crap that it's ... it's OS/2 all over again. Yes, that hideously bad.

Unix (and I use the generic term since "Linux" is just one of about a hundred flavors/types and It really doesn't matter) is slim, fast, and doesn't crash. My parents have a Mac running the latest OS. And it they have to reboot it so infrequently that when they do, they call me wondering if they need to take it in to get looked at. Microsoft has gotten us trained to think of crashes and rebooting as normal? How the hell did that happen?

Remember the old days? Yes - nothing crashed. Or did so very infrequently. Imagine if your XBox 360 crashed every hour. You'd start looking for something to be broken Yet the funny thing is - Halo 2 runs on both boxes! Most new PC games are also released on the 360 at the exact same time. So what the hell gives? Same company making both, afterall...

Remember when we first got a computer? Most of us got it because it was cool, fun, and something great. And with Windows... it's a damn chore to keep it running. It feels like being at work instead of being fun. And you wonder why consoles are eating PC games for lunch? People want a gaming box and not a side job.

Spiderman 3? PC and XBOX. Test Drive Unlimited? Gosh - you can both get online and even the other peolpe can't tell if you are running on a XBOX or PC the code's so identical. Go into any EBgames and 95% of the PC crap is on the console as well. It used to be that the PS3 was $600 - and hell, that is a lot of money that would do a LOT to make a PC into a serious beast... but... You have to think about it a bit backwards. Vista requires $600 in upgrades and months of headaches. $600 and moving to unix(I like Xandros and Ubuntu myself - YMMV) gets me all the same games and 15 second load times, no freezing, no crashes... just turn on and blow some shit up to relieve steam.

Or just get an XBOX360 used for $250 and laugh at the idiots who still take it up the butt every time they boot their box.

P.S. - those two games you listed are old. Farcry? 3 years ago? Battlefield 2? Over two years. It's gotten seriously bad lately - we are essentially getting alpha-state programs and being the beta testers. Games are short, suck, and crash with firghtening regularity unless you wait until it has gone "gold". Now with the OS itself (Vista) exhibiting the same problems... no thank you.

Get an XBOX 360 or PS2 for games and not ever have to upgrade your PC - not until something dies of old age that is. You'll never ever look back once you switch.

[Trump]

The pain.. the pain...

First, you can keep your P2/600 mmmkay? I'll take something that can actually run the games you talk about.

Second, I'm sorry you've worked tech support so long. It has apparently fried your brain and made you assume everyone has trouble like the people you are trying to help. I'm sorry if you only see the bad ones, but there are many more good ones you never see.

I've been running this computer for 3 years with almost no issues. I've played Farcry, I've played Halo 1 (PC version), I've played Prince of Persia Sands of Time, I've played Civ 4, I've played Prince of Persia 2 Warrior Within, I've played Age 3, I've played Prince of Persia Two Thrones, I've played AutoAssault, I've played Vanguard, and I've had NO TROUBLE getting things to work. On top of that, some of those games were even in Beta.

And about the state of video games, I consider all of those good games. Sure, they don't come out twice a month, but what do you really expect?

On top of that, I've installed new RAM and a new wireless PCI card. Windows didn't have any trouble. I've done programming without any trouble. Not just any programming, graphics programming with direct X. I think there is a minor flaw with my video card but what does that have to do with windows? I run it on my brothers computer and it comes out fine. So my hardware has a minor flaw that windows seems to handle pretty well. I know that speaks of great horrible evil there....

So really, it isn't the operating system causing the problems here if I have managed just fine. I'd look more at the root of the post... err.. problem.

[Plekto]

Oh, my current system is a nice P4 with a super-fast video card. Loads of memory. Hell, it's a damn server motherboard that's among the most stable ever made. But you could easily run Linux or whatever flavor you want on a crummy P2 as fast as Vista runs on a dual-core P4. Windows is literally that much code-bloat.

I notice that you don't list very many Eidos or EA games. Nothing that requires the latest version of direct-X to run. You have no clue how bad it's become. I have a $2000 computer system and it runs as slowly and as poorly as a ten year old Macintosh. Looks beautiful enough to cry over in the games, but 4 hours? 6 levels? AI that literally sits there and lets you shoot them because they think that if they can't see you from behind that post, neither can you. (Bugblather Beast referrence noted :) )

Games on PC suck lately. Content is near zero, replayability is... humm... perhaps it's that all games now are turning into console games. So if we all have to suffer with console games on PC, then why the hell have to deal with Vista and instead just buy the 360? The hell I'm going to spend $500-$600 upgrading my perfectly good PC to run some game that requires DX10 when a two year old Xbox 360 runs it perfectly.

I'm sick of hearing people go on and on about how if you switch you'll have no games. As if - the sorry state of the industry is chruning out 95% trash anyways. And the rest is always on a console/can be had in unix/mac/etc.

Remove games from the equation and gosh - the last reason to drop Windows is gone. (not even getting into DRM and Big-Brother issues)

[Y.T.]

The problem is, that somehow the same cretins who make films have infiltrated into the gaming industry, meaning that new games are short, dumb (intellectualy hardly challenging. Maybe for the preznit, but not for most smarter folks)..

The reason they are short is, that some people seem to think that if the game doesn't have top-of-the-line graphics, it won't sell. More complex graphics - higher budget.. more conservative development, they aren't likely to take chances make something new and interesting.. etc.


I wonder why is it that HL-2 had dumber enemies than HL-1 and why is it that the quite nasty AI that is in Unreal hasn't been implemented in games such as Doom3. It would be kind of funny if instead of being chased by you, you would be chased by monsters..

I hope someone makes Deus Ex 3 .. if only they skimped on graphics, and instead finally provided large, very large maps. Maybe, if they converted some CAD building plans into maps ..
99% of all 3d FPS games (not multiplayer) consist of just one long path littered with dumb AI enemies to shoot. No figuring out where to go next. No mazes, nothing.. Ultimately boring.

[Jetsetlemming]

Zakalwe, play Far Cry. Seriously. non-linear paths across gigantic tropical isles. Each "level" covers about 3 or 4 miles of island. It looks better than Oblivion yet runs at 20+ FPS on my low end hardware.
I personally don't want a Deus Ex 3 because it's more than likely to follow in the footsteps of Invisible War (i.e. be poorly designed for consoles and raped and butchered for PC) if Eidos handles it, and unfortunately Eidos owns the IP.
I didn't get the impression that HL2's enemies were dumber than HL1's, just there were some more memorable scripted events in HL1. >_>; Like, the Call of Duty series doesn't have einstein AI. It just has every little thing scripted and designed to a T.

[Y.T.]

Schoolmates said that the said AI in Far Cry gets very confused if you really use an unexpected path..

Still, I might get it.. recently I found out that my gfx card has 128 mb, instead of 64 mb on which my father insisted..

That Far Cry might even work.

[Jetsetlemming]

They get confused if you use silenced weapons and can't see you. Seriously, you can shoot dead a merc standing right next to his friend, and his friend'll shout "Are you ok!?" and not have no idea where you are, not even the right direction to look in. >_>;
There are occasional cool moments with the AI on the same hand, like if they have an idea where you are but didn't exactly see you (just heard the loud assault rifle shots), they'll occasionally empty a clip at random into the greenery around you, hoping for a lucky hit. They'll also pile in nearby vehicles and hunt you down if you flee, and try to sneak up on you if you're focused in another direction.

[Plekto]

Good AI... That's a tough one. Valve places a huge emphasis on the game being tough at harder levels not by tweaking their damage, but making the enemies pretty close to a typical young kid(ie - not some teenager/expert, but still more than rock-dumb)

UT 2004 has superb and I mean OMG hard Ai at the toughest levels. UT3 is going to be a total mind-squish. And I'll be loving every moment of it. :)

I personally love the no explaniation given sort of game. Remember the beginning of Diablo? You. Town. Figure it out(not hard, but still - there were a few areas where you had to think even a tiny bit).

Worst game so far was probably Fear. Hype-o-zilla. You can't even go in doors and into side rooms going down a hall. No, Doom 3 was worse. I'll play an old copy of X-Com anyday over that crap. Aliens wanting to eat your face off? X-Com was sweet. Nighttime missions and real-time fog of war plus insanely powerful weapons made for a really scary experience. SO much so that you'd try to time every mission to be during the day.

Doom3? Meh. Might as well be a fancy version of... well, DOOM. Lol.

[Jetsetlemming]

X-com is indeed "teh pwn".
Unreal games don't have good actual AI. They have a "paths" system. Levels are designed to tell the computer where to go and what to do there. The only real AI about it is friend or foe identification. Higher difficulties mean faster movement speed, higher health, and more damage for bots, plus a slight "sixth sense" ability to hunt down opponents, and that's it.
Once you take a game apart it's really not so complicated.

[Chris]

Plekto, I've used Windows for awhile, and for the last 9 months or so I've been using linux.

To be honest, in all those short years of experience with windows, mainly xp, I only got a blue screen when I screwed up. That's not to say Windows is the greatest OS ever made, there are some good alternatives depending on what you do. But I really don't see where you're getting all these problems from. Most people I've known haven't had a crapload of problems with XP unless th themselves messed something up. Or didn't do research before hand when building a computer.

Linux isn't much better, Ubuntu wasn't too bad, it took some work, but not much, to get stuff like flash working, but Nvidia drivers took some effort. Games, well, even older games (such as Civ III) didn't get along with Wine all that great. And I didn't feel like paying for Cedega. Arch linux has done quite well, except that flash is really a bitch to get working in 64 bit unless you've some experience with linux, or are willing to work for at least 30 minutes the first time. Windows? Even with Firefox nowadays it's pretty damned simple. Visit a site, get told to piss off because you don't have flash, follow links to get flash, return, and you're done.

It really does depend on what you're doing, and I wouldn't call Windows the bloated piece of crap you keep referring it to. It's not that bad. I actually prefer it on my laptop because it runs fine on a 1.8 with 256 mb of ram (for surfing, movies, and such) and most anything I buy will work with Windows pretty easily. Unfortunately, while I love Linux, I really can't say the same for it.

[Kaji]

There's always Wolf-3d...Plenty of space to get lost in several of the later levels (still never beat mission 4-7 because I can't find the damn key), and the AI's actually not half bad considering the era. hehehe...

[Plekto]

My comment was purely from a speed standpoint.

1Ghz is really fast. No - silly, mind-boggingly fast. If you are running in a simple shell or a command-prompt, things get done in miliseconds. 3Ghz plus dual-core is shocking. That Windows Vista can eat up so many cycles and still do not much other than what a simple unix shell does is apalling. No, it's actually a little bit awe-inspiring in a bad way.

http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm
At the very bottom you can see the difference between XP and W95 in raw speed(or lack thereof) roughly 60% as fast. And comparing it to what the original boxes did in dos/unix, something on the order of 12-16x bloat.

As for *ix installs/distros, I like Xandros because it is backed by a nice company. It's not that expensive and comes with all of the codecs paid for/legal to instal - so they are included, naturally. Plus a wad of apps and such that are as simple to install as Windows. Definately worth $40 of my time compared to Ubuntu. Now, Ubuntu is slick, but it's also a 2-3 day chore to get up and running. But it's free - lol.

Yeah - commercial apps are lacking mostly for *ix, but then again, most everyting has an *ix counterpart other than games and some high-end business programs.

[Y.T.]

X-Com is great.. I liked the last one best... nothing better than being a boss of one own's militia, killing aliens, raiding drug dealers ( and then selling their stashes) .. Too bad they didn't finish the game. More features were planned, but cut from the final version.

UT2004 is awesome.. and the AI is competent. On the other hand, I have played it online with a guy who can win 50:0 over godlike AI in DM.. (1 on 1). He was in the European finals last year or something like that.

The AI never learns. On the higher difficulty levels.. most points are earned by baiting the AI into doorways and then blasting those with rockets/flak/shock combos..

I disagree with what you say about AI. They never have more speed/health. Faster reaction times, that's true. They do follow paths, but I think the same can be said about most human players...

Though.. I hope they'll manage to implement smarter bots in the next UT ..

[Chris]

My comment was purely from a speed standpoint.

1Ghz is really fast. No - silly, mind-boggingly fast. If you are running in a simple shell or a command-prompt, things get done in miliseconds. 3Ghz plus dual-core is shocking. That Windows Vista can eat up so many cycles and still do not much other than what a simple unix shell does is apalling. No, it's actually a little bit awe-inspiring in a bad way.

http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm
At the very bottom you can see the difference between XP and W95 in raw speed(or lack thereof) roughly 60% as fast. And comparing it to what the original boxes did in dos/unix, something on the order of 12-16x bloat.

As for *ix installs/distros, I like Xandros because it is backed by a nice company. It's not that expensive and comes with all of the codecs paid for/legal to instal - so they are included, naturally. Plus a wad of apps and such that are as simple to install as Windows. Definately worth $40 of my time compared to Ubuntu. Now, Ubuntu is slick, but it's also a 2-3 day chore to get up and running. But it's free - lol.

Yeah - commercial apps are lacking mostly for *ix, but then again, most everyting has an *ix counterpart other than games and some high-end business programs.


I guess, but unless you're doing video editing or image stuffs (in which case I'm wondering why you're using linux anyways) then does the speed really make that much of a difference? Hopping from a 1.5 ghz on Win XP, to a 2.8 ghz, to a AMD64 and also onto this laptop, all having run XP at some point, in 32 bit. And with the AMD64 having run two different linux versions, the main difference I saw was the number of apps I could have open and still multitask well. Aside from multimedia stuffs, and games, I never noticed a huge difference. And neither of those have really grabbed a foothold in Linux.

[Trump]

So XP is 60% slower than Win95. So what? In the 8 years between the operating systems computers got something like 400% faster. From a business standpoint, it sure as hell makes sense to put more into your software, especially since 90% of your market doesn't ever hit the point where their computer isn't fast enough to run the new version of windows. And why would you spend tons of money making it more efficient? Have you ever coded in assembly? It was aweful but you could make really efficient and small code. But is it worth it? No way.

And about the quality of games, you say consoles are the way to go but there have been just as many crappy console games as PC games. It is going to get even worse now that consoles have the ability to patch.

[The_Penguin]

Look - I know computers. I've used them for 30 years. More operating systems than most people here could remember or even recognize. I've likely forgotten more about programming than most people woudl ever want to know to begin with short of contemplating jumping off of something. I've fixed them, been a certified technician, run my own consulting firm, and done more looking at the insides than most anyone I know(other than my two best friends who got started when I did - lol). Out of the last 30 years, 24 of them have been other OSs. 6 have been Windows. And it's over. I can learn another OS just like I have a dozen times before.
And in all that 'experience' you probably never fired up a kernel debugger or had the curiosity to look at the internals.
And Windows is crap. But we all know that already. ;) It's slow, a hideous resource pig(recent tests to see how slow you could get a PC to run on XP proved it - XP runs on a P1 12x slower than windows 3.11 did, based upon CPU load at idle(sometihng like 60% just running the finder). Vista is such crap that it's ... it's OS/2 all over again. Yes, that hideously bad.
Umm... you DO realize that XP has modern memory management that frees you from rebooting your PC every time an app crashes and leaves oodles of allocated memory that can't be freed in Win 9x? So yes, it's slower, but it's safer and more reliable. And given the exponential increase of CPU speed, it's a non-issue.

I love it when people pine about the 'fast' Win 9x PCs... but they have to reboot every few hours. I can get my XP Home partition to boot and not have it shutdown for months on end (the occasional patch will make me reboot or when I wanna go into Ubuntu.)
Unix (and I use the generic term since "Linux" is just one of about a hundred flavors/types and It really doesn't matter) is slim, fast, and doesn't crash.
You've never used it long enough, have you? Or better yet, you haven't messed with it enough, have you?
My parents have a Mac running the latest OS. And it they have to reboot it so infrequently that when they do, they call me wondering if they need to take it in to get looked at. Microsoft has gotten us trained to think of crashes and rebooting as normal? How the hell did that happen?
Get them a laptop with XP, it will behave in the same manner. Unless you get a new version of the kernel/drivers, only then will you reboot (assuming you set it up correctly.)
Remember the old days? Yes - nothing crashed. Or did so very infrequently.
What the hell are you talking about? In the 'old days', you couldn't even get some shit to boot in the first place. Go through all of the initial distros of Unix and have fun trying them to boot and stay up for a long enough time, you'll start looking at ME as some sort of an ultra-reliable and stable OS.
Remember when we first got a computer? Most of us got it because it was cool, fun, and something great. And with Windows... it's a damn chore to keep it running.
Dude, I've had my XP Home distro running for weeks in the past, if you can't manage that, then you can't call yourself a computer expert of any sort.
$600 and moving to unix(I like Xandros and Ubuntu myself - YMMV) gets me all the same games and 15 second load times, no freezing, no crashes... just turn on and blow some shit up to relieve steam.
Ok, tell me, how will you do this? Cedega is one way to play games on a *nix box, but that alone is a beast that eats up resources, the games that you want to play won't run natively (and Cedega does a fine job of making some visual effects from DirectX look really funky), it costs money on top of having to buy the games and you always have to wait extra for TransGaming to make a new release for a given game ON TOP of having to wait for the game to be released (and lets hope that you're not playing an MMORPG such as Guild Wars or EVE where there are constant updates, then you have to wait for TransGaming to come out with a patch -- which are not always stable -- and get in as much play time as possible before CCP releases another patch, no thank you.)

Then there are some games that run natively, but those can be relegated to a museum of gaming. And given the plethora of distros out there, not all of them run at the same level of performance as on others.
Or just get an XBOX360 used for $250 and laugh at the idiots who still take it up the butt every time they boot their box.
I laugh at all the idiots who can't get their XP boxes up and going for 96 hours+ without crashing or rebooting.
Now with the OS itself (Vista) exhibiting the same problems... no thank you.
Ok, what specific problems is Vista exhibiting that are 'the same problems'? I don't see a plethora of reports online stating that Vista crashes left and right. Where are you getting your information from?

If you want to trash-talk Windows, that's fine, but at the very least don't use the same worn out talking points that I've seen so many anti-Windows zealots spout. Do some research on the subject first and investigate by yourself to confirm that that the information that you see online is correct, don't just absorb it. I'm typing this now in FF with Ubuntu 6.06 (I've had it for a few years now.) I love my *nix partition and will continue to use it in the future, but it's depressing to see people shooting off at the mouth on a subject that they have simply read about online on some blog or digg and then just repeat it.

[The_Penguin]

Oh, my current system is a nice P4 with a super-fast video card. Loads of memory. Hell, it's a damn server motherboard that's among the most stable ever made. But you could easily run Linux or whatever flavor you want on a crummy P2 as fast as Vista runs on a dual-core P4. Windows is literally that much code-bloat.
Again, do you know why that's the case? Have you actually, ever, looked into the internals of the OS?

And please, if you get Ubuntu on a P2 box and put in just as much as eye-candy as that Vista box, you'll be in pain and suffering.
I notice that you don't list very many Eidos or EA games.
Seems like the problem is not with the whole industry, it would be with those two companies? And if you're buying games only from those companies and then making a statement on the rest of the game industry... umm... you're kidding, right?
Nothing that requires the latest version of direct-X to run. You have no clue how bad it's become. I have a $2000 computer system and it runs as slowly and as poorly as a ten year old Macintosh.
*lol* Looks like someone has never bothered to turn off some services on that machine.
Looks beautiful enough to cry over in the games, but 4 hours? 6 levels? AI that literally sits there and lets you shoot them because they think that if they can't see you from behind that post, neither can you. (Bugblather Beast referrence noted :) )
How is that Microsoft's fault? I can make a crappy program that runs poorly on my Ubuntu box, if it crashes, should I blame Torvalds?
Games on PC suck lately. Content is near zero, replayability is... humm... perhaps it's that all games now are turning into console games.
You're buying the wrong games. Refer to above for some suggestions.
So if we all have to suffer with console games on PC, then why the hell have to deal with Vista and instead just buy the 360?
I can easily get a new box (my current one is over 4 years old), configure it correctly and have it run those games _without_ having to buy a console. Also, I can use
I'm sick of hearing people go on and on about how if you switch you'll have no games.
Oh, you'll have games, on your console and maybe even on Cedega if you're patient enough to deal with non-stop upgrades. But with Cedega, the games will be slow and on top of occasional crashes of those games (and other flaws), you'll have to deal with potential crashes of Cedega (which is where your games sit on top whenever you run them.)

Have fun.
As if - the sorry state of the industry is chruning out 95% trash anyways.
Psst, stop buying EA games.
And the rest is always on a console/can be had in unix/mac/etc.
*lol* Umm... so tell me, what Mac/Unix/Linux games are there? And now lets compare that selection to the games that can be had on a PC (excluding consoles.)
Remove games from the equation and gosh - the last reason to drop Windows is gone. (not even getting into DRM and Big-Brother issues)
Umm... plethora of drivers? Having your code run well on many computers without having to test it up the wazoo? VS .NET that is more capable than gcc + gdb?

[The_Penguin]

The reason they are short is, that some people seem to think that if the game doesn't have top-of-the-line graphics, it won't sell. More complex graphics - higher budget.. more conservative development, they aren't likely to take chances make something new and interesting.. etc.
No, it's because it's easier and therefore cheaper. Making a pretty picture is alot easier than writing code for a gaming AI that tells the enemy soldier in that FPS to stop for a sec and throw a grenade instead charging in and shooting off an assault rifle. Also, being able to think for a sec and determine a good time to run in and start shooting (as in, not the moment that you enter the room/level) requires quite a bit of algorithm programming (which makes games more complex and requires more testing.)

Besides, b00b13s is a big sell for some geeks.

[The_Penguin]

Good AI... That's a tough one. Valve places a huge emphasis on the game being tough at harder levels not by tweaking their damage, but making the enemies pretty close to a typical young kid(ie - not some teenager/expert, but still more than rock-dumb)
Ok, your complaining is pretty tiring right now. If you're so convinced that 95% of games out there are nothing but pure crap, then write your very own PC game, a 'good' game (in your opinion.)

I dare you.

[The_Penguin]

My comment was purely from a speed standpoint.

1Ghz is really fast. No - silly, mind-boggingly fast. If you are running in a simple shell or a command-prompt, things get done in miliseconds. 3Ghz plus dual-core is shocking. That Windows Vista can eat up so many cycles and still do not much other than what a simple unix shell does is apalling. No, it's actually a little bit awe-inspiring in a bad way.
You can't copy files? Cut/move files? Rename them? Search for files? Search text files for specific pieces of text in Vista?

[The_Penguin]

I guess, but unless you're doing video editing or image stuffs (in which case I'm wondering why you're using linux anyways) then does the speed really make that much of a difference? Hopping from a 1.5 ghz on Win XP, to a 2.8 ghz, to a AMD64 and also onto this laptop, all having run XP at some point, in 32 bit. And with the AMD64 having run two different linux versions, the main difference I saw was the number of apps I could have open and still multitask well. Aside from multimedia stuffs, and games, I never noticed a huge difference. And neither of those have really grabbed a foothold in Linux.
Yeh, I noticed that about XP and Ubuntu, in *nix, multi-tasking is done better and Gnome has certain features that make the experience more pleasant.

[The_Penguin]

So XP is 60% slower than Win95. So what? In the 8 years between the operating systems computers got something like 400% faster. From a business standpoint, it sure as hell makes sense to put more into your software, especially since 90% of your market doesn't ever hit the point where their computer isn't fast enough to run the new version of windows. And why would you spend tons of money making it more efficient? Have you ever coded in assembly? It was aweful but you could make really efficient and small code. But is it worth it? No way.

And about the quality of games, you say consoles are the way to go but there have been just as many crappy console games as PC games. It is going to get even worse now that consoles have the ability to patch.
I'm willing to wager that many of the people that are complaining about XP being (supposedly) slow as hell have never even tried to become proficient in C/C++, much less assembler (which is a pain to learn.)

[xtine]

Umm... plethora of drivers? Having your code run well on many computers without having to test it up the wazoo? VS .NET that is more capable than gcc + gdb?

I would have to disagree with you on that one. Have you ever tried doing commercial software development with .NET? For Windows it's great, but why are you comparing it with a total cross environment open-source compiler for mostly C/C++? They are clearly for different purposes. .NET is also very proprietary under Microsoft. Anyone can pick up GDB and start making or testing their own thing right away

Also, the driver issue is annoying in Windows. The majority of hardware peripherals work out of the box on linux/mac right away. Just install your network card or sound card, and it's recognized right away. In Windows, if you don't have a driver for a particular card, you are out of luck. Although it can be argued that for sound/video cards you can get better performance out of native Windows drivers, there are lot of a open-source even official drivers for better performance on linux.

[xtine]

I'm willing to wager that many of the people that are complaining about XP being (supposedly) slow as hell have never even tried to become proficient in C/C++, much less assembler (which is a pain to learn.)

What does C/C++/assembly development have ANYTHING to do about Windows XP or their basic/regular users?
IMO, it just sounds like you are trying to throw some basic programming terms to try to sound like you have some sort of leg-up in the discussion to those that aren't programmers. And really, most regular users that know what they are doing (don't use bloaty software, install antivirus, defrag, etc) have a right to say that their XP is fast or slow. It doesn't depend at all on any programming experience and it shouldn't.

[Trump]

Wow, double post much?

[Jetsetlemming]

This thread is chock full of double posts, bullshit claims, and useless semantic squabling. :meh:

[RoxFontaine]

I didn't read everything yet, but I had to chime in with:

This shit SUCKS!!! I bought a new laptop and it was installed already. I couldn't pass up the deal on the computer and thought, "I won't be doing so much with it, so it probably won't matter if Vista isn't totally up to speed yet."

Man, was I wrong. I've been trying to install the updates for a week and a half and I've had absolutely NO success. I've searched everywhere for a solution. Nothing. I bought a new printer and tried to install it (using the Vista CD that was made for installing said printer)......didn't work. I ended up using some other drivers to get it to work.

Complete crap.

[xtine]

This thread is chock full of double posts, bullshit claims, and useless semantic squabling. :meh:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Internet Forums. :clap:

[Y.T.]

This whole forum (+internets+reality) is a testament to the rule that 90% of everything is crap.

Welcome to the real (90% crappy) world..

[Plekto]

Sorry - internet was offline for 5 days(110% Charter's fault - putzes...)

Penguin... Way to much to cut and paste together. I've messed around with let's see... at least 4-5 versions of unix(true versions like AS/400/HP-UX, and so on - not just "flavors"), VMS, and if you really want to get into old, even a couple of 4-bit computers back in the late 70s. Built computers when it was the only way you COULD have a computer.

Done more programing over the years than I care to remember. no, not this new crap. Assembly and hard-core coding. It's a total no-brainer, for instance, to make a nice desktop-like shell. Hell, the Commodore 128 had a perfectly good one and so did the ancient Apple IIGS. If a puny 8-16mhz computer can do the basics of a windows-like environment, why the hell is Vista so freeking slow and such a memory hog?

Windows XP was a total joke and Vista is bordering on insanity - the bloat and problems are so numerous. As for how often it crashes, I do run a lot of programs on my machine, from the typical torrents, web, photoshop, and so on, to more advanced stuff like ray-tracing apps and compilers and such. So I know what makes for a stable machine and the sad fact is that Windows is like a big leaky boat. Probably will make it, but it's a long way from a new small one when all you want to do is get across the lake.

How about these three problems:
1:pathname with more than 255 characters in it. We run into this at work every otherr day. Won't copy files off of the server. Can't access the file properly so we have to alter the paths until they are short enough.(total PITA when that also means re-doing the Concordance databases)

2:Try copying 20,000 windows files into one directory. Good luck getting it done anytime soon. God help you if you actually tried to get properties on it or did a sort on it.

3:native long filenames without 3 letter file type crap(or some insane lookup table to keep it all straight). We copy files all the time and can't use a command/dos type app or else the files all get messed up.(and Windows copy programs are a totally slow experience by comparison)

When you use Windows hard in a business enironment(or as a developer / programmer), you run into a hideous amount of crap Windows just does wrong.

And.. if something blows up... Well, you can hope they patch the app sometime. Versus fixed in days or weeks. Take the main application we used at my work two years ago. Buggy but the only app that would do the job, even halfway well(and halfway well is all it did). 6 months - no fixes. 250K a year site license and nada... 6 more months... same deal.

We hired 4 unix programmers and made out own in-house app and it is quick, fast, and rocks. And we can fix bugs in sometimes minutes. Unix gives you this as an alternative that's just entirely missing with Windows. So your comment about drivers and support and such... moot.

[Chris]

I still don't get how you're saying Windows crashes all the time. I can't say I'm an incredibly hard user, but 99.9% of the time that windows has ever crashed under my use, it's been my fault, one way or another. I was either testing something or doing something wrong.

[The_Penguin]

I would have to disagree with you on that one. Have you ever tried doing commercial software development with .NET?
Yes.
For Windows it's great, but why are you comparing it with a total cross environment open-source compiler for mostly C/C++? They are clearly for different purposes. .NET is also very proprietary under Microsoft. Anyone can pick up GDB and start making or testing their own thing right away
You can't debug STL with gdb. .NET does it pretty damn well. And despite the coolness of gdb (I've used it often), it doesn't compare to windbg (the ultimate debugger.)
Also, the driver issue is annoying in Windows. The majority of hardware peripherals work out of the box on linux/mac right away.
Huh? Sound works out of the box in Windows. It mixes sound as if it's nobody's business. I remember trying to get my Ubuntu partition to _not_ give an exclusive lock on my sound card to only one app. That was kinda annoying. Took plenty of forum visits to get it working. How is that out of the box?
Just install your network card or sound card, and it's recognized right away. In Windows, if you don't have a driver for a particular card, you are out of luck.
1) I've yet to run into an instance where I can't find the correct drivers online. They're there. It might require some digging, but they can be found. However, if they are not implemented for Linux in the first place, then you're screwed.
2) I've yet to run into an instance when during a fresh XP install, the OS didn't recognize my LAN card. Sound worked fine too.
Although it can be argued that for sound/video cards you can get better performance out of native Windows drivers, there are lot of a open-source even official drivers for better performance on linux.
Yes, that's true. However, the open-sourced ones don't take advantage of all of the features that the hardware has to offer. From what I've heard, the close-sourced ones do.

[Plekto]

One thing to note about Unbuntu - their distros outside the U.S. are full-featured and sound works right. The U.S. releases come sans drivers and codecs for copyright/fee issues. You have to load them in yourself. But what do you expect for free?

[The_Penguin]

What does C/C++/assembly development have ANYTHING to do about Windows XP or their basic/regular users?
:shrug: Well they constantly bitch that Win 95 was faster than XP and want those 'good days' back. When you shoot off at the mouth about software and never have written any in the first place... well, you figure out the rest of this sentence.
IMO, it just sounds like you are trying to throw some basic programming terms to try to sound like you have some sort of leg-up in the discussion to those that aren't programmers.
Yup and people who don't understand atleast the basic theories of operating system design. It's like having someone complain that you're not getting the same speed and acceleration in your present car to your past one, when the present car has airbags, safety features, power windows/door locks, etc.but they bought a whimpy little 120 horsepowered engine. Same engine, but heavier car...

Screw the safety! I wanna crash at a wall at 120+ mph!
And really, most regular users that know what they are doing (don't use bloaty software, install antivirus, defrag, etc) have a right to say that their XP is fast or slow. It doesn't depend at all on any programming experience and it shouldn't.
In that case Jetsetlemming doesn't have a right to bitch that he's using old and busted hardware that makes Win 95 run like hell but XP slow as a turtle, right?

And those people on this thread who are saying that if Vista isn't made 'leaner', they'll switch to Linux* already should just go ahead and switch without any further whining, right?

* The console is your 'friend' :) .

[The_Penguin]

One thing to note about Unbuntu - their distros outside the U.S. are full-featured and sound works right. The U.S. releases come sans drivers and codecs for copyright/fee issues. You have to load them in yourself. But what do you expect for free?
What the hell are you talking about? You go to their site, you download an iso, burn it and install the OS. Everyone gets the same damn iso. And how the hell is Ubuntu's people supposed to filter out and direct the American visitors away from the 'international' isos of the distro?

[Plekto]

Ah - that's the trick. Same distro, technically. If you use the update utilities/installer apps, Ubuntuu's servers check to see if you are in the U.S. and won't give you audio and video support. You can do it manually, but it's locked out for U.S. customers due to having to pay a fee for the codecs in question(all of something liek $15, which is a total pita)

In plainer English - the open-source/free drivers and codecs aren't available to U.S. installs from the various repositries.

The easy solution of course is to set your install to Canada and leave it there. :)

Or just pay $60 and get Xandros which has paiid for all of that B.S. for you.(ATI video drivers aside - they are a total kludge unless you have at least a 1 yr old card)

[The_Penguin]

Windows XP was a total joke and Vista is bordering on insanity - the bloat and problems are so numerous. As for how often it crashes, I do run a lot of programs on my machine, from the typical torrents, web, photoshop, and so on, to more advanced stuff like ray-tracing apps and compilers and such. So I know what makes for a stable machine and the sad fact is that Windows is like a big leaky boat. Probably will make it, but it's a long way from a new small one when all you want to do is get across the lake.
1) What does it say about your skills as someone that is proficient with computers and programming when you can't get XP up for a few weeks, while I (a programmer who is still learning) can do that easily?

2) Turn off some of the services running on your machine and you'll see memory freed up and performance improvements.
How about these three problems:
1:pathname with more than 255 characters in it. We run into this at work every otherr day. Won't copy files off of the server. Can't access the file properly so we have to alter the paths until they are short enough.(total PITA when that also means re-doing the Concordance databases)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#Limitations

Those are path components that need to be less than 256 chars, not pathnames. And frankly, if you have a directory or a file that's exceeding 255 chars in name, it's time to come up with a better way to store that info.
2:Try copying 20,000 windows files into one directory. Good luck getting it done anytime soon. God help you if you actually tried to get properties on it or did a sort on it.
Try copying any 20,000 files into any directory in any OS. I remember copying files from one drive to another in Ubuntu (total volume was over 150 gigs) and it took me over an hour to do that. I remember going shopping, coming back and still seeing that progress bar.

Get a better hard-drive, don't blame the OS where it's not at fault.
3:native long filenames without 3 letter file type crap(or some insane lookup table to keep it all straight). We copy files all the time and can't use a command/dos type app or else the files all get messed up.(and Windows copy programs are a totally slow experience by comparison)
Up to this point I've been working under the assumption that you're working with XP at your job, the fact that you're saying that is shaking that assumption and leading me to believe that you're using Win 9x. Am I wrong?
When you use Windows hard in a business enironment(or as a developer / programmer), you run into a hideous amount of crap Windows just does wrong.
You use it 'hard'? What do you do exactly to it? Have it copy thousands of files, then start compiling tons of code, while using a web-browser to look something up?

I've had problems with Windows doing a piss-poor job of multi-tasking when I was watching a clip on youtube, while compiling something and other stuff (copying files, running Azureus, etc.), but my XP Home partition was always rock-solid and has yet to crash due to any sort of strain like that.
And.. if something blows up... Well, you can hope they patch the app sometime.
Wait wait wait, if an app blows up due to the poor implementation of some coder, it's the fault of the OS?
Versus fixed in days or weeks. Take the main application we used at my work two years ago. Buggy but the only app that would do the job, even halfway well(and halfway well is all it did). 6 months - no fixes. 250K a year site license and nada... 6 more months... same deal.
What app are you using?

You need to give me more specifics.
We hired 4 unix programmers and made out own in-house app and it is quick, fast, and rocks. And we can fix bugs in sometimes minutes. Unix gives you this as an alternative that's just entirely missing with Windows.
:duh:

1) You can fix bugs in minutes with Windows as well, just recompile the code in .NET.
2) Windows != *nix. I really hope that you're not confusing it as one in the same by some sort. For a given task, one OS will be better than the other. If you're using Windows for something that Linux was designed to do better in the first place, then... well... what's this forum's policy on insults?
So your comment about drivers and support and such... moot.
Yeh, good luck finding drivers for some obscure apps or ATI cards or the latest hardware. And good luck finding drivers that work with that hardware well. ATI and Nvidia put out proprietary drivers for their cards that you can install on your linux box, but if you're a smaller outfit, you'll make one driver for XP and won't bother with making drivers for Linux.

[The_Penguin]

Ah - that's the trick. Same distro, technically. If you use the update utilities/installer apps, Ubuntuu's servers check to see if you are in the U.S. and won't give you audio and video support. You can do it manually, but it's locked out for U.S. customers due to having to pay a fee for the codecs in question(all of something liek $15, which is a total pita)

In plainer English - the open-source/free drivers and codecs aren't available to U.S. installs from the various repositries.

The easy solution of course is to set your install to Canada and leave it there. :)

Or just pay $60 and get Xandros which has paiid for all of that B.S. for you.(ATI video drivers aside - they are a total kludge unless you have at least a 1 yr old card)
Or change the paths to all of the servers from where it draws the updates and set them to not US. That and frankly I don't believe you. I've never heard of this on the ubuntuforums, got a source?

[Y.T.]

enguin... Way to much to cut and paste together. I've messed around with let's see... at least 4-5 versions of unix(true versions like AS/400/HP-UX, and so on - not just "flavors"), VMS, and if you really want to get into old, even a couple of 4-bit computers back in the late 70s. Built computers when it was the only way you COULD have a computer.

Just curious.. you were tinkering with computers at age 7-10 ? Your age in your profile states 36.

[The_Penguin]

Just curious.. you were tinkering with computers at age 7-10 ? Your age in your profile states 36.
Well, it's not impossible.

[Jetsetlemming]

I've been using a computer since I was 5. *shrug*
And Plekto was half-right! That's the closest he's been to stating the truth since forever! Ubuntu and other free linux OS's don't and can't come with closed source and commercial codecs (Ubuntu comes with all the open source and free codecs it can fit, US or no, plekto). The biggest, most noticable of these is the .mp3 codec. You'll have to pirate or personally buy it for ubuntu, otherwise you'll have to stick to .ogg related formats. All the media files in ubuntu by default are in .ogg, and it comes with an .mp3 to .ogg converter.

[The_Penguin]

I've been using a computer since I was 5. *shrug*
And Plekto was half-right! That's the closest he's been to stating the truth since forever! Ubuntu and other free linux OS's don't and can't come with closed source and commercial codecs (Ubuntu comes with all the open source and free codecs it can fit, US or no, plekto). The biggest, most noticable of these is the .mp3 codec. You'll have to pirate or personally buy it for ubuntu, otherwise you'll have to stick to .ogg related formats. All the media files in ubuntu by default are in .ogg, and it comes with an .mp3 to .ogg converter.
You can install the codecs that are proprietary. You'll get a warning saying "WARNING: This is not 100% legit in the US, do you still want to proceed?" and then you just go ahead with it nevertheless.

[Jetsetlemming]

Which is why I said "you'll have to pirate it". :P

[darighaz]

My biggest comment on this thread is

Don't quote how long you've been using computers. Its completely irrelevant. What matters is how much time you've spent using .net, c#, programming for current technologies. It really doesn't matter if you've been using computers for 30 years because technology used 6 years ago has no place at all today. Its like trying to establish your competency with modern coding saying you used to code in FORTRAN.

If you want to sound like you know what you're talking about, don't talk about how out of date you are.

[Y.T.]

technology used 6 years ago has no place at all today. Its like trying to

C++, Java, Linux have no place today ? They are all older than 6 years ..

[xtine]

My biggest comment on this thread is

Don't quote how long you've been using computers. Its completely irrelevant. What matters is how much time you've spent using .net, c#, programming for current technologies. It really doesn't matter if you've been using computers for 30 years because technology used 6 years ago has no place at all today. Its like trying to establish your competency with modern coding saying you used to code in FORTRAN.

If you want to sound like you know what you're talking about, don't talk about how out of date you are.

My biggest comment on this thread is

Don't quote how much you know about programming languages. It's completely irrelevant. What matters is how much time you've spent actually on the computer with current technologies. It really doesn't matter if you are the master of C for 30 years, because you can still be an idiot on using computers but be a good programmer.

Basically, it's like saying just because you are a very good mechanic, you must be a very good driver. You can still be able to know how a car works and make parts for the car, but still be a very bad driver.

Bringing out how much you know about programming languages is some sort of exclusive pissing contest. You don't need to know a programming language to know how to build or run a computer well. It may help a little, but basically it's a different skillset.

It's also funny since you think .net and c# is so current technology. Let's start talking about Python and Ruby then.

[The_Penguin]

C++, Java, Linux have no place today ? They are all older than 6 years ..
And they've all changed considerably in that time (more than most realize.)

[Plekto]

Just curious.. you were tinkering with computers at age 7-10 ? Your age in your profile states 36.

Haven't updated - I'm 37 in a month. ;)

My family moved into their house(my parents are still there) and right across the street was another family - and the father worked at JPL(Jet Propulsion Lab). So I did grow up literally building and working on all sorts of homegrown computers thanks to them.

You also have to remember that companies like Heathkit and such were still around during the mid 80s as well and most old computers were tossed when they were unable to run anymore as opposed to being disposeable like now - so it was common to go to a programming class after school and well, the one I learned at(age 10 or so, IIRC), still had PET terminals. Old tech was very easy to find in use.

But the thing was - that even a decade later, the college I went to was still using AS/400 and VMS servers. So I got a crash-course in that as well. Then my next college, where I studied computer science, they had all HP 9000 and simmilar there, which were and still are amazing for what they can do.

My first PC that I ever bought was my laptop in college(DOS) and I stayed with Dos, Mac, and others until 2001. Then I bought my first Windows box. And it's been a kludge. It's slow, it's hard to keep running stabily, and well, for me at least, I'm looking for alternatives. Because it won't take more than a year or two before all of the new PC games require DX10, which requires... yep... Vista. That wall is coming up fast and it's time to jump out before the car hits it.

So I'll keep my current box for another few years and run *ix on it. And get a console for the games, since PC platform-only games are less than 5% of the new titles anyways.

Oh - about the codecs, yes - my point is that while you CAN, it's illegal and a pain to locate them manually as opposed to well, just paying for it and getting it on the install disc. Well, to most of us here, it's no big deal, but to a company or a typical consumer, they want an appliance/idiot-proof (and legal) install. I recommend Xandros because it does an amazing amount of hand-holding and also comes with a special version of WinE made to run business apps.($40 normally and worth every penny, imo)

But I'll wait for the new Ubuntuu distro in a few weeks before I make up my mind. I have a copy of Xandros though that I'm testing for client use, though. Very impressed, since the most common thing people call me goes like this:

Customer:Hi - I was wondering what a system from you would cost.
Me:Well, what do you currently have?
(bit of talking and thrashing over the specs and such - basically they want a faster box or theirs is dying)
C: So what are my options here?
M: Well, this is goign to be tough. To set up a new Windows machine will cost upwards of $1000 to do right.(can hear the balls falling down the Pachinko-like machanisms in their head for several seconds as it sinks in)
C:Wow... I really only wanted to spend a couple of hundred dollars...
(classic customer sticker shock - the #1 problem in consulting)

If I could give them a copy of something unix-based that would look cleaner, run more stabily, and installed as simple as Windows, all while doing it on their 3-4 year old machine - and they could still keep their MS office apps...

So far Xandros looks promising but about a year away from "Prime Time". But both Ubuntuu and Xandros are infinately better than Windows. The stuff just plain works. Like that old cast iron skillet. Simple and effective technology.

P.S. the time that I have spent with computers does mattter in this context, because I've seen the evolution and bloat in OSs and programming. I've used many different OSs and that gives me prespective on how wrong Vista is. We've somehow been conditioned to think that Windows idea of stability and reliability is normal. I've seen it long enough to remember when computers rarely crashed - they were console stable for the most part.

I know we can do better - and the solution is now well within anyone's reach - but they have to be willing to take that first step and change.

[The_Penguin]

Plekto, next time tell your customers to go to Dell if they want a good PC for a low price (as in, a low end PC.)

Also, for the life of me, (and yes, DO TELL) I can't figure out as to how you can't get an XP box up for atleast a month. What the hell do you do to it? Did you do shove a crack pipe into one of the ports? Honestly, answer me this, how is it that I can get my 3 year old box that has XP on it to stay up for months on end and you can't?

And you'll notice after a while that your customers don't want to be bothered with the console (and yes, in *nix, you'll have to deal with that at one point.) And when their friends tell them about the newest and coolest app/game that they have, they'll want that too, until... they realize that they can't install it on their Xandros/Ubuntu box. Because as you said, they want something that 'just works'. And no, *nix doesn't 'just work', get your head out of your ass, you know that full well.

*nix is great for geeks that just love fiddling with stuff, but your average shmo that wants to see pictures of family and then play a game on the side (even simple flash games) won't want to be bothered.

And please please please, tell me how Vista sucks. DO TELL. Name subsystems in Vista (specifics here man) and tell me what problems there are with them. If you can't then you're just a ranting and disillusioned tool who probably had a hard-drive running Win9x crash on you and lost all your porn.

[The_Penguin]

My biggest comment on this thread is

Don't quote how much you know about programming languages. It's completely irrelevant. What matters is how much time you've spent actually on the computer with current technologies. It really doesn't matter if you are the master of C for 30 years, because you can still be an idiot on using computers but be a good programmer.

Basically, it's like saying just because you are a very good mechanic, you must be a very good driver. You can still be able to know how a car works and make parts for the car, but still be a very bad driver.

Bringing out how much you know about programming languages is some sort of exclusive pissing contest. You don't need to know a programming language to know how to build or run a computer well. It may help a little, but basically it's a different skillset.
Nope, but odds are if you're a mechanic, you're _atleast_ a competent driver... enough not to crash that thing into a fucking tree.
It's also funny since you think .net and c# is so current technology. Let's start talking about Python and Ruby then.
Was this supposed to be funny?

[Trump]

Hmm...

I'm playing a game that is still very buggy. It frequently crashes, no shock there. But you know, all I have to do is go to the task manager and end the task. And if that doesn't work I force kill the process. Then I restart my game and play for several hours. Damn XP is crappy for letting me recover from failures so well.

Vista will improve. I'll just wait another year or so before I buy it and everything will be fine.

[Civilization Phrase III]

Honestly, I'm so stoked that they upgraded the damn Solitaire game on Vista, I'm buying it when I get back to the US. Lame reason, but so true.

That article was excellently written though. My laptop however, needs (1) internet (2) Word (3) Solitaire, in that order. And storage space of course.

Vista just makes all those things so much prettier. I'm taking this from such a superficial angle, but as far as my laptop goes, what I'm saying is true. As for a desktop...I'd put more thought into things.

EDIT for inclusion of more recent, idiotic posts.

Mechanics =/= Good Drivers. These are two VERY separate skills that can be learned independently, and do not rely on each other. Gee, I know how to an assemble an engine, but damn, stick shifting is tough! In this age, we take for granted that everyone's a fairly decent driver, mechanic or not.

Furthermore...Python is hardly that 'new'. And yeah .NET and C# are definitely not cutting edge. Ruby on Rails is probably the newest thing to catch on for Web 2.0, but you mind as well put in AJAX as far as new programming goes. And C++ and PHP are good old stand ins. PHP is love, especially with MySQL goodness.

Yeah...you guys went off on a bad tangent. Vista people, let's discuss Vista!

[xtine]

Nope, but odds are if you're a mechanic, you're _atleast_ a competent driver... enough not to crash that thing into a fucking tree.

Was this supposed to be funny?

You say ODDS are you are a competent driver, but there are still a few that do crash into trees. I am a computer science student. While I see the ones that are both genius programmers and know everything about operating systems, there are those that are brilliant programmers and have a really stupid and unsafe computer setup.

Also, the bit about Python and Ruby isn't supposed to be funny. I am an open source developer, so Python and Ruby are indeed up and coming languages.

[Plekto]

Plekto, next time tell your customers to go to Dell if they want a good PC for a low price (as in, a low end PC.)

Oh, you mean those appliance like boxes that invariably are the same pieces of crap that they currently and are calling about why they don't work right/at all anymore?

The thing is - you can't run Vista well on a cheap, low-end PC and that leaves them with a dillemma. Pay loads of money or... jump ship.


Also, for the life of me, (and yes, DO TELL) I can't figure out as to how you can't get an XP box up for atleast a month. What the hell do you do to it? Did you do shove a crack pipe into one of the ports? Honestly, answer me this, how is it that I can get my 3 year old box that has XP on it to stay up for months on end and you can't?

I run far more advanced applications than you do, both in gaming and in programming. Simple as that. Far Cry and the like aren't games like Supreme Commander or Silent Hunter 4. Now, true, Windows is somewhat good now about not really crashing hard when it blows up, but...


And you'll notice after a while that your customers don't want to be bothered with the console (and yes, in *nix, you'll have to deal with that at one point.)

But... this isn't hardly any different than rummaging around in the control panel and with the task manager, either, for them.


And when their friends tell them about the newest and coolest app/game that they have, they'll want that too, until... they realize that they can't install it on their Xandros/Ubuntu box.


BZZT. Wrong. 90% of the clients I deal with want email, MS office, and web. They don't ever buy games, don't ever get into trying to beat their neighbor... it's just a thing in on the desk they do their taxes and email on and that's IT.

To you... well, yeah... games are a bitch to not have anymore, but does your Grandmother actually play WoW? Lol - of course she doesn't unless she's one of the few thousand worldwide that apparently do.(anything is possible I guess)


Because as you said, they want something that 'just works'. And no, *nix doesn't 'just work', get your head out of your ass, you know that full well.

I was pretty clear in saying that it works once it's set up. You can run a stable install of UBuntuu, for instance - well... forever, pretty much. I install, it works, they are happy... and it runs like a TV set reliability-wise for the next two years. Given the inability to upgrade that most of them show(you'd be amazed at the number of W95/W98 machines I run across - like almost half of them), *ix is good because once set up, you don't NEED to mess with it.

"Oh man - this new game requires a new video card and me to install something called a service pack and a driver for my video card and..."
Windows machines are always in a constant state of patching and re-patching. The typical home user can't hardly figure out how to work a simple Firewall app, let alone all of that.


*nix is great for geeks that just love fiddling with stuff, but your average shmo that wants to see pictures of family and then play a game on the side (even simple flash games) won't want to be bothered.

UNix can do al of that right out of the box now, and you (should) know that. I really suggest that you try out one of the commercial vendors products to see. In a year or so, there won't be a single reason left not to switch.

[Civilization Phrase III]

Hmm, for the record, Ubuntu rocks.

It could be mainstream if they marketed it right. So user friendly and Linux-love <3