Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Silent Vista-loving majority?
Not So Fast
by jlastre - 5/9/08 4:38 AM In reply to: well, according to ed bott... by chustarMight want to check the Wikipedia article on Dr. Gutmann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gutmann_(computer_scientist) or look to Dr. Gutmann's response http://www.cypherpunks.to/~peter/zdnet.html before patting Mr. Bott's back.
Vista liker (not quite lover yet)
by capkarl - 5/9/08 12:15 PM In reply to: Not So Fast by jlastreIt sounds like back pedaling to me so I'll go with the Bott article. Like any new OS there is a learning curve. I'm not an expert just a user. I still use Windows 3.1 on one of our 386 based ATE machines at work (operates flawlessly) I use XP on my work and home desktops and Vista on my new HP Laptop (1.8 core duo with 3gig ram).
The only problem I encountered, besides very old versions of several programs not working, was the media player not being able to write a DVD. The HP provided program worked fine???
BTW I do like the elegance of the Mac interface and Vista seems the closest so far
Vista's pretty good.
by Groverw - 5/1/08 7:32 AM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarI've spent months now defending Vista to my friends and family. I've heard so much crap about it, but in my experience it's running very well. I've only had a few problems and they were nothing worse than I usually see in XP. I'm shocked by the backlash against Vista (though I recognize they screwed themselves with the whole Vista Capable logo) and wish companies would at least offer IT support. I work at a large hospital and even a whole year after the Vista release (when I got my new computer), IT was saying that they couldn't help me get my computer onto their secured wireless network because they hadn't bothered to purchase a copy of Vista yet to test. It drives me crazy. Fortunately in that case it only took me about 10 minutes of looking around online to figure it out.
IT Adoption is Never A Good Indicator
by PressAnyKey - 5/1/08 8:12 AM In reply to: Vista's pretty good. by GroverwSeriously, my current company just upgraded us to Office 2003 because they don't want to be too hasty about adopting new software...
Vista
by Doty152 - 5/1/08 8:45 AM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarI've had vista for a year now, and i love it. I've only had a few problems, but they were hardware not software (thats why you should check compatability before building your own system). But any how, we use XP at my school, and it is soooooooooo slow, i usually bring in my vista laptop to use.
Vista is not the majority of the OSs out there.
by Dango517 - 5/1/08 11:14 AM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarXP is for the moment. Vista users are about 14% of those using OSs on the net. XP 80%+.
I like and use Vista and XP. I like Vista better. Both cost too much. Microsoft needs some serious competition to bring there prices down and provide a better product.
This thread is untracked.
I Like Vista's user features.
by Renegade Knight - 5/1/08 11:25 AM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarHowever I've bumped into various issues.
SP1 solved a blue screen isseu but would not intall due to a Driver Incompability.
Regular Vista would not configure Media Center. (SP1 Fixed whatever this issue was, or it was case of "reinsall and see if it works this time...)
Direct X issues on XP/Vista Games because of how Vista and Direct X have changed for Vista.
Driver kludge. Drivers have become buggier. I blame MS specs on drives more than the driver makers.
Vista's user features are great. Bitlocker is hard to beat. Shadowcopies can save your butt. Built in desktop search, thumbs up. However the underpinnings are bloated, sluggish, and artificially complex. They could have done a lot to make services and start up progrmas managable and the OS more bloat resistant.
I'm not a member of the "silent" majority. I have been on 1, 3, 95, 98, XP though.
Silent Vista-meh majority
by Aeirlys - 5/1/08 12:58 PM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarI've been using Vista for a few months and don't have any issues with it. I can't say that I love it - any more than I've loved any other OS.
What I really want from an OS is for it to be invisible, just do what it's supposed to do and not crash all the time. Vista's never crashed on me, so I guess it's fine.
My take on Vista
by aMUSICsite - 5/1/08 2:29 PM In reply to: Silent Vista-meh majority by AeirlysWhen I bought my first PC way back in the early 90's (one of the first 286's) already being a bit of a teckie I did my research on everything from chips to OS's. Even then it was clear that Unix was miles ahead of everything. In the end I went for a PC DOS system. From there I went to Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000. When Windows 95 came out I was one of the few who opted for OS2Warp,mainly for security reasons, which was replaced by Windows when it became apparent Warp was not going to take off.
This taught me a valuable lesson. An OS is worth nothing without software. Seems obvious but easy to forget. Keeping an eye on all OS's and trying Linux every few years, although each time seeing an improvement, it has not tempted me yet.
On to Vista via XP. When XP came out Apple went to Unix and my initial admiration of Unix persuaded me to get a Mac laptop and stick with W2K on my desktop. XP did not come into it's own until SP2 and although I never had it on my home computer I used XP a lot in work, still using it at work now.
Vista does not seem to be much worse than XP was when it first came out. The problem seems more that OS X and Linux seem to have improved much more than Windows since XP came out.
Then again as long as the majority of software is written for Windows. and the hardware manufactures only support Windows. MS don't need to do too much. Even though Apple's increase in sales has drastically increased the number of Mac users it's not being matched by hardware and software makers moving to support OS X.
From where I work it's easy to see why, about 40 staff with 2 tech support guys who have to support thousands of products. They don't want the extra hassle of supporting more OS's. It also cost more money which no company wants.
As long as all the stuff in PC World only carries the Windows logos MS have as much time as they want to get Vista right. I recently bought two eternal devices both which only had the Windows logo on the box. One worked on the Mac no problem the other did not. If you move away from Windows you loose support even if it works. At least until the market catches up.
Vista is not bad, it just could be so much better. MS know they have a safe market and it's not going to change over night. My guess is by SP 2 they will have got Vista up to the same level that XP was at SP 2 i.e. a reasonable OS fully supported by the software and hardware industry. Because of that fact alone it will be the No1 choice for most people.
Vista will buy them more time to try and get the next version of Windows better. But the other OS's are gaining momentum and MS will have to start watching it's back as the new Mac/ Linux users start getting into business and pushing for more Mac/ Linux support from within the IT business.
May Not Matter in A Few Years
by PressAnyKey - 5/2/08 5:43 AM In reply to: My take on Vista by aMUSICsiteI think the biggest threat to MS's market share are simply web based applications. If "software" for most non-specific applications become web-based then the OS will not be as important.
I understand everything cannot fit into this model but the possiblities are stronger as it becomes easier to stay connected 24/7...
Why Ubuntu Linux will surpass Windows on the desktop
by chappejw - 5/8/08 2:23 AM In reply to: My take on Vista by aMUSICsite- is faster
- is secure (not like any version of Windows)
http://www.linux.com/feature/131059
- is stable & reliable
- is easier to understand and use.
- is easier to develop drivers for.
- is free..!!
- has over 100,000 free software packages
- has no advertising bots built into the OS
- is secure and requires no purchase of an antivirus or firewall
- plays nice with other operating systems and hardware
- is more fun to use than Windows
- does not have that annoying office animation called clippy.!!
- can run Windows like a program through virtualization
- and... Linux saves you alot of time and money.!
Once you try it you will not miss Vista...!
www.ubuntu.com
i agree
by lizardo_manson - 5/8/08 5:54 AM In reply to: Why Ubuntu Linux will surpass Windows on the desktop by chappejwI don't like linux or ubuntu because is a hassle to make it work with the programs or games, and i think typing sudo whatever to do something, even installing a driver is a big no no. But i admit is very fast and reliable, i order every version of kubuntu because is the only OS im interested in use besides XP.
it's pretty neat OS
by 7aji88 - 5/8/08 8:06 AM In reply to: Why Ubuntu Linux will surpass Windows on the desktop by chappejwand I can run photoshop on it witch is important, but I had such a trouble to get it to work right at the beginning. I have it on two machines, one that works fine, and the other won't boot to the Gnome interface all the time( have to find out why) but I love the desktop effects.
Why Linux still has some work cut out for it...
by voyager529 - 5/8/08 9:03 AM In reply to: Why Ubuntu Linux will surpass Windows on the desktop by chappejw- is faster
*okay, under most circumstances this is the case
- is secure (not like any version of Windows)
*For now this is the case, but who's gonna make an exploit for 1% of the population?
- is stable & reliable
*I've crashed Mandriva, and my XP laptop has crashed three times in the year and a half I've owned it. Conversely, my desktop running XP home has run for three weeks straight between reboots.
- is easier to understand and use.
*This is subjective. For whom is it easier to understand? In my experience, people whose computing needs can be fulfilled with OOo and firefox will be fine in Linux. Unix veterans and programmers are also good in Linux because they understand how everything works and if it doesn't do something, they know exactly how to recompile the kernel to do it. It's the middle ground that can be problematic, at best.
- is easier to develop drivers for.
*...and yet it's still a matter of pulling the lever on a slot machine to see if a particular distro supports my wireless card.
- is free..!!
*But does it offer an ROI? In most cases, when i've tried to use Linux, it's taken me triple the time to figure out how to do it. Over the course of the year-and-a-half I've been on XP, I've made my money back several times over. Plus, you still have to know to look for it. Linux doesn't come to the customer.
- has over 100,000 free software packages
*...but none of them are industry standards like Photoshop, Microsoft Office, or Final Cut Pro, and at that the quality of the products vary greatly from package to package.
- has no advertising bots built into the OS
*...neither does Windows
- is secure and requires no purchase of an antivirus or firewall
*...this is because it doesn't support running viruses...or most other programs that people have and want to run.
- plays nice with other operating systems and hardware
*...it depends on how well you do on the aforementioned slot machine. If you land a jackpot, then yes, Linux is very good to work with. If not, you're carving out a Saturday afternoon to do on Linux what takes 15 minutes on Windows. I remember taking three hours to get a Linux equivalent of Hyperterminal to work.
- is more fun to use than Windows
*This is subjective.
- does not have that annoying office animation called clippy.!!
*neither does office 2003 or 2007. And citing this as a reason to switch operating systems and relearn everything is ridiculous.
- can run Windows like a program through virtualization
*and do you think the average person knows what virtualization is? Do you think that they're going to spend the time to change that? Can you confidently state that if a program works well in native Windows that it will work well in virtualized Windows? How about my church's worship software that uses a secondary monitor and DirectX? I have not had success with it.
- and... Linux saves you alot of time and money.!
*Every single time I used Linux for something other than a web browser or partitioning (GPartEd/PING), it has never taken me less time to do anything else. In most cases, it has taken me a whole lot more time.
Once you try it you will not miss Vista...!
*Again, this is a subjective judgment call.
www.ubuntu.com
All of this to say that I do think that Linux does have alot of potential, and it has come a significantly long way in a very short period of time. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the Linux community. The problem is that there is still plenty of work that needs to be done, and as can be seen in so many areas of computing, it takes more than just a great product to gain ground in the mass market.
In my opinion, the thing that the Linux community should put the most effort into is making sure that Linux drivers are included in *every* product that hits store shelves. There should be a flag, a fruit, and a penguin on every device I see in Best Buy. Even if the OS is free, no one is going to want to buy a peripheral that *might* work. Right now, every single piece of software and hardware I look at in Best Buy (with the exception of the video game aisle and Mac department) will work on my desktop or laptop, both of which run Windows XP. Once Linux can do that, that'll break down one of the biggest walls that would inhibit adoption.
Joey
RE: Linux > Windows
by techguy651 - 5/9/08 9:07 AM In reply to: Why Linux still has some work cut out for it... by voyager529"- is easier to understand and use.
*This is subjective. [ ] people whose computing needs can be fulfilled with OOo and firefox will be fine in Linux. Unix veterans and programmers are also good in Linux [ ]. It's the middle ground that can be problematic, at best.
"- plays nice with other operating systems and hardware
*...it depends on how well you do on the aforementioned slot machine. If you land a jackpot, then yes, Linux is very good to work with. If not, you're carving out a Saturday afternoon to do on Linux what takes 15 minutes on Windows. I remember taking three hours to get a Linux equivalent of Hyperterminal to work."
I found both of these to be the case as well. Ubuntu Linux was great when I was just doing e-mail, word processing, and internet browsing. Later, I wanted to watch videos on my TV through the TV-out on my ATI card (something that takes maybe 10 minutes to setup in Windows). The process of configuring the ATI driver in Linux to use a TV out was a three week ordeal that involved me writing arbitrary code into seemingly random config files. For a guru: easy. For someone new to Linux, but not computers (the "middle class"): difficult.
IMO: The "middle class" has the most OS market power. Once Linux becomes easy enough for those people to tweak then you'll see a swift shift in the OS landscape.
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