OT: VISTA

Randallw · #1 January 31st, 2007, 02:29 AM

End of this year I may buy a new computer, leaning towards yes at the moment. I'm doing well these days what with a new job along with my benefits. I expect it'll have Vista, though I'll keep an eye on it beforehand. I'm a bit anxious actually as I hear horror stories of new computers people buy. My current one doesn't have such problems partly I think because the son of someone my mother knows custom built it. I have an Acer at work which showed me for once what a bad computer can be like.

I wouldn't be staying up all night just to be the first to buy stuff for 3 reasons, off the top of my head.

1. Why spend top dollar when with a bit of restraint and patience you can get it when the cost goes down after the initial bluster.

2. It's just a OS. I will not die if I don't have it, and I am opposed to wasting effort/making more of something beyond realistic standards. Same goes for why I do not go to midnight screenings of movies (but then I hardly bother with cinemas anyway)

3. I control my life. I decide what is important, not get carried away by bluster and hype.

PDF · #2 January 31st, 2007, 11:01 AM

I've switched from 98 to XP .. les than 2 years ago !

So let's wait a couple of years, we'll have a debugged Vista SP2, the DX10 hardware will be affordable and we'll have some software really using it

Ironmanbc · #3 January 31st, 2007, 11:33 AM

I also went from 98se to Xp pro and I think it's great.

Some of my friends got the home Xp and are having trouble with it (oh well) I'm still running an 1.4g with 1g ram Ati 9200 video Soundblaster Live

It works well playing WoW

PvK · #4 February 4th, 2007, 02:47 AM

When M$ says Vista has the most security ever, I think they probably are thinking about all their attempts to keep users from copying any corporate products with it...

Baron Munchausen · #5 February 4th, 2007, 03:53 PM

Because of DX, Windows has prety much locked up the 'flashy' games market. Not good strategy games, though. You can get lots of cool games for Linux like Free Civ. Just not the latest RTS games like Homeworld II or FPS games like Doom. But other than games, there are lots of equivalent options beyond Windows and it's getting better all the time. Linux has the most options ever: Anything important that you can find for Windows you can find for Linux. The Firefox/Seamonkey/K-Meleon and Opera browsers, for example. And Open Office is now a complete replacement for MS Office. And two other complete desktop suites are getting close to complete as well, Gnome and KDE. And you have many choices of who to buy from instead of being locked into one manipulative source. There are even dedicated sites for comparing the various distributions available:

http://distrowatch.com/

Fyron · #6 February 4th, 2007, 04:23 PM

I find Free Civ to be a crappy game, however.

It saddens me that there is no Foobar2000 for linux. Amarok probably comes the closest, but it just isn't the same. :-\ Then you've got sub-par multi-IM clients like Gaim and Kopete... Linux text editors are either ancient monstrosities like emacs and vim, or they are really basic like Nano or Gedit. I have yet to see any good modern gui "programmers" text editors on linux. sigh..

Will · #7 February 4th, 2007, 06:23 PM

Doom 3 runs on Linux. As do other id Software titles, such as the Quake series.

Also, there is speculation that the upcoming new version of Trillian, named Astra, will run on OSX and Linux as well. The developers have said that they got their core engine to compile for both platforms, and hinted that it might be released for more than just Windows. No official announcement as far as I've seen, however. I haven't used Linux as a desktop in a few months, so I'm not sure of the state of IM on the platform. On my Powerbook, I use Adium, which is based on the gAIM engine, and of course, use Trillian on the Windows PC.

If you're looking for "programmer's" text editor, have you tried Eclipse? As for emacs and vim, the "ancient monstrosity" description may fit emacs, which is on version 21.4 and has been in nearly constant development since at least the 1970s. But vim is a much newer "clone" of the older vi. Once you get used to vim, it is a very powerful editor, absolutely perfect for editing config files.

Fyron · #8 February 4th, 2007, 06:34 PM

Eclipse is an IDE, not just a text editor. It is nice software, but generally overkill.

IMO, vim is a monstrosity, ancient or no. I find the fundamental control scheme to be ridiculous.

Here's hoping "Astra" won't be a bloated flop like Trillian 3 was.