Just another Vista thread.. My first impressions.. And compared to Ubuntu.

[Nothinman]

I disagree. I think Synaptic is godly compared to having to manually compile dependancies, but for most programs in Windows you either pop in the CD or double click the installer. Whats difficult about that other than having to restart?

For one I can install, remove and update all of my software in one place, it's what Add/Remove Programs should have been.

Just for the most basic of tasks occasionally requires line item input.

Wow, I think you get some bonus points for calling the command line "line item input", but otherwise I'm not sure what you're talking about. What basic tasks require the cli?

I think another factor is the naming convention in Linux. g-this, k-that, with many programs having funky names. Windows programs have simple names, that pretty much tell you what they do. It may not matter to us, but to the average home user, its a BIG deal.

Naming doesn't seem to have stopped the popularity of Firefox. And sure MS picks all of the really simple names but not everyone who writes Windows software follows their lead, a friend of mine just got a new laptop and it came preloaded with tons of crap and I couldn't figure out what half of it was for by it's name.

Anyhow. I tried Linux and liked it alot, but could not, with 6 distros, get webcam working nor could I get all of my games working in either Wine or Cedega. That was a deal breaker for me.

I can't really say about the webcam since I don't own one, I would have thought that most USB ones should 'just work' but I guess not. But you can't really be surprised about the games. WINE should only be used as a last resort. If you had bought a Mac you wouldn't expect to run all of your Windows games in OS X, would you?

Vista is pretty nice. Recognised all my hardware on install, and everything worked.

So did XP back when it was first released, in a few months Vista will be just as much of a PITA to install. =)

I guess people forgot RC2 for XP...it was buggy as hell.

Or they remember it well and want to avoid the same issues with Vista this time around. Waiting for a few months to let the early adopters else shake out the major bugs isn't a bad idea.

The "almost" part is the really big problem. I find myself just booting into Windows because it's more convenient. When I want to play games not supported by WINE or run Windows only applications for class I don't want to go through the hassle of rebooting. For me, Windows is an OS that just works when compared to Ubuntu. Yeah, sometimes drivers are missing or I need to install software but that's really painless and just requires hitting the "Next" button a bunch of times and maybe a reboot. Some basic things in Ubuntu took me hours to figure out how to fix.

And I have the opposite feeling, when I had a dualboot setup I found myself never using Windows because Linux is more convenient. Infact I still have an XP Home partition on my notebook that I haven't touched in probably 6 months that I should just delete. You should probably be messing around in VMWare instead, you won't get to use Beryl cause hardware accelerated 3D isn't supported but you'll avoid all of the annoying rebooting.

It doesn't seem possible to change audio streams while playing a video file. You have to run mplayer from the command line and specify which audio stream you want. In Windows you can change audio streams while the movie is playing in Media Player Classic.

That's an mplayer-specific problem and ironically I don't think mplayer is supported by Ubuntu at all. But at least you can change the audio stream, I couldn't figure how to change it at all in WMP on my friend's machine.

These are just a few issues I can remember but you get the idea.

And did you fill out any bug reports about them? Not everyone has the same hardware as you so it's hard to test things without someone willing to help.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[Nothinman]

I will switch when DRM becomes a real problem

Some would say that DRM is already a problem and the longer you wait the better the chance of it being too late.

You should have your friend switch to Media Player Classic, I haven't used WMP ever since I switched.

I don't think he really uses the his MPC enough to really care, it's main use was WoW for his girlfriend the last time I was there. But that's not the point, you were complaining about Linux software when the software from MS is even worse in that regard. =)

For example, the back button on Logitech mice not working on a fresh Ubuntu install is a known inconvenience. There are long threads about the topic already.

That one I don't really get unless the Logitech does something odd with their buttons. I would have guessed that all of the buttons would work but might need to have an action defined.

The others are driver issues, like my X-Fi doesn't work under Linux. There's really nothing that can be done about that and Creative has been taking their sweet time in releasing Linux drivers.

F' Creative, their hardware and drivers are both crap. I have an SBLive that worked fine in my last machine but has 3 different problems depending on the PCI slot I put it in in this machine and all 3 render it useless. And their X-Fi drivers for Linux will be of the nVidia-crappy-non-free-binary-only type anyway so they'll be a PITA to keep working anyway.

It's also really unfortunate that consumers can't get their computers from Dell, HP, etc without Windows loaded. I'll be buying a new laptop soon and if I had the option of skipping Windows to save a hundred bucks I would do it and just load Linux.

There have been a few instances of people successfully returning their copy of Windows to get the money back and keeping the hardware, but it's a PITA and takes a while.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I disagree. I think Synaptic is godly compared to having to manually compile dependancies, but for most programs in Windows you either pop in the CD or double click the installer. Whats difficult about that other than having to restart?

For one I can install, remove and update all of my software in one place, it's what Add/Remove Programs should have been.
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Just for the most basic of tasks occasionally requires line item input.

Wow, I think you get some bonus points for calling the command line "line item input", but otherwise I'm not sure what you're talking about. What basic tasks require the cli?
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My example: webcam. Its a newer Logitech, prety common. But I run it, and I get: no device connecting to /dev/video0. So Im thinking WTF is /dev/video0? After a couple hours of scrounging forums, and running all kinds of command line instructions (lsusb, ls /dev/video*, lsmod | grep spca5xx (making sure driver is installed), sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r` build-essential gcc-3.4 (making sure everything is up to date), and a few others, it was suggested to move my webcam to /dev/video1. As I tried to do that I get an error "too many symbolic links". WTF. At this point I gave up. I know for a fact an average user wouldnt have gotten half as far as I did. -MOST- things are plug n play. If they arent, you are stuck in line item hell. In windows, if windows supports it, you install a driver. Thats it.

I think another factor is the naming convention in Linux. g-this, k-that, with many programs having funky names. Windows programs have simple names, that pretty much tell you what they do. It may not matter to us, but to the average home user, its a BIG deal.

Naming doesn't seem to have stopped the popularity of Firefox. And sure MS picks all of the really simple names but not everyone who writes Windows software follows their lead, a friend of mine just got a new laptop and it came preloaded with tons of crap and I couldn't figure out what half of it was for by it's name.
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Anyhow. I tried Linux and liked it alot, but could not, with 6 distros, get webcam working nor could I get all of my games working in either Wine or Cedega. That was a deal breaker for me.

I can't really say about the webcam since I don't own one, I would have thought that most USB ones should 'just work' but I guess not. But you can't really be surprised about the games. WINE should only be used as a last resort. If you had bought a Mac you wouldn't expect to run all of your Windows games in OS X, would you?
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Well the simple answer is maybe. Apple's Windows emulator runs nearly flawlessly. That being said, one of the reasons I moved from Mac to Windows in 2000 was for gaming. Im not sure what you mean when you say Wine should only be used as a last resort...there are so few games that natively run on Linux, Wine is essential for gamers, and IMHO audio/video editing (which I also do alot of).

Vista is pretty nice. Recognised all my hardware on install, and everything worked.

So did XP back when it was first released, in a few months Vista will be just as much of a PITA to install. =)
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I guess people forgot RC2 for XP...it was buggy as hell.

Or they remember it well and want to avoid the same issues with Vista this time around. Waiting for a few months to let the early adopters else shake out the major bugs isn't a bad idea.
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I see your thinking here, however with the number of hardware and software configurations that are out there, an OS would never be released if they waited for 90+% compatibility. Its just a reality that there is so much hardware out there, and proprietary software, its impossible to please everyone. I think Vista will work for *most* people just fine. Linux, not so much.

The "almost" part is the really big problem. I find myself just booting into Windows because it's more convenient. When I want to play games not supported by WINE or run Windows only applications for class I don't want to go through the hassle of rebooting. For me, Windows is an OS that just works when compared to Ubuntu. Yeah, sometimes drivers are missing or I need to install software but that's really painless and just requires hitting the "Next" button a bunch of times and maybe a reboot. Some basic things in Ubuntu took me hours to figure out how to fix.

And I have the opposite feeling, when I had a dualboot setup I found myself never using Windows because Linux is more convenient. Infact I still have an XP Home partition on my notebook that I haven't touched in probably 6 months that I should just delete. You should probably be messing around in VMWare instead, you won't get to use Beryl cause hardware accelerated 3D isn't supported but you'll avoid all of the annoying rebooting.

Thats too bad. Lots of people, like me, desire it to be so.

It doesn't seem possible to change audio streams while playing a video file. You have to run mplayer from the command line and specify which audio stream you want. In Windows you can change audio streams while the movie is playing in Media Player Classic.

That's an mplayer-specific problem and ironically I don't think mplayer is supported by Ubuntu at all. But at least you can change the audio stream, I couldn't figure how to change it at all in WMP on my friend's machine.

These are just a few issues I can remember but you get the idea.

And did you fill out any bug reports about them? Not everyone has the same hardware as you so it's hard to test things without someone willing to help.

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One last thing to mention...I do quite a bit of audio and video editing. there just isnt the tools I need to do what I need to do in Linux. It used to be that the average user just used email and surfed the web, maybe a little finances on their PC. In today's multimedia world, more and more people are getting into audio and video dubbing and manipulation. Unfortunately it is too difficult, and requires "dirty" apps in Linux.

Again, just my opinion.

 

[Nothinman]

In windows, if windows supports it, you install a driver. Thats it.

And it's virtually the same in Linux, you had problems because the webcam isn't well supported if at all. What do you do if Windows doesn't support it?

Apple's Windows emulator runs nearly flawlessly.

Apple doesn't have a Windows emulator. VirtualPC and now Parallels let you run Windows on top of OS X via virtualization but no hardware acceleration is supported, so unless you're playing Mahjongg you're going to be disappointed.

m not sure what you mean when you say Wine should only be used as a last resort...there are so few games that natively run on Linux, Wine is essential for gamers, and IMHO audio/video editing (which I also do alot of).

Because if you're insistent on running Windows-only apps you probably shouldn't be running Linux. All you're going to do is make things harder on yourself for no real benefit.

I see your thinking here, however with the number of hardware and software configurations that are out there, an OS would never be released if they waited for 90+% compatibility. Its just a reality that there is so much hardware out there, and proprietary software, its impossible to please everyone. I think Vista will work for *most* people just fine. Linux, not so much.

I meant the users should just wait a few months, not MS. Let the early adopters deal with all of the driver and app compatibility problems and by the time SP1 is released most likely everything will be fine or at least as close to 'fine' as XP currently is. And IME Windows doesn't work fine for most people, if it did there wouldn't be such a huge market for antivirus, antispyware, Geek Squad, etc to handle all of the fixing and upgrading for most people.

Thats too bad. Lots of people, like me, desire it to be so.

Plain old desire doesn't make something happen, if it did I would have had a much different experience growing up. =)

I've heard that VMWare is currently working on a way to enable hardware acceleration when the VM is run in full screen mode, but it'll probably be a while before it works well enough for daily use. You can isolate hardware and give domUs direct access to certain devices in Xen, so I guess it's possible to get hardware acceleration there but it's a huge PITA to setup.

One last thing to mention...I do quite a bit of audio and video editing. there just isnt the tools I need to do what I need to do in Linux. It used to be that the average user just used email and surfed the web, maybe a little finances on their PC. In today's multimedia world, more and more people are getting into audio and video dubbing and manipulation. Unfortunately it is too difficult, and requires "dirty" apps in Linux.

Again, just my opinion.

I don't disagree and it's one of the reasons that Apple's offerings are so popular, things like iPhoto and iDVD are perfect for most people's needs and are much simpler than most of the alternatives.

 

[blackangst1]

Good points and counterpoints, IMHO.

On the webcam thing (Im not trying to beat it into the ground, just making a point)...Others have gotten the same cam running on the same distro. On many different pages, including the site for the largest driver for cams (spca5xx) says my specific cam model, on the same distro I was using, is supported. I even brought the question up in ubuntu's forums, and after many requests of , "what does this output give you, what does that output you, etc" I got a bunch of "I dont know" answers.

My point is, Linux is still not as plug and play friendly as windows, which is something the general public demands for desktop use. I realize alot of the problem is most linux drivers are reverse engineered from windows drivers, because manufacturers dont make linux drivers. Not all, of course, but certainly a majority. Linux is coming along nicely as an alternative, but I still feel it is not ready for primetime. I dont do alot of wierd off the beaten track things. Besides the usual stuff, I just game, and vid/audio edits/rips/dubs, just like most people. And until Linux can do everything I can do in Windows, Im not gonna switch. Dont misunderstand me...I dont mean LIKE windows does it. I just mean...does it.

I will also caveat this by saying I am a lazy user, and admit it. Im 40, and a network engineer who has, over the years, learned some pretty wierd OS's and hardware line item config languages. I dont want to have to learn yet one more. I want to click and be done. (For the most part) Windows does this for me.

 

[Nothinman]

On the webcam thing (Im not trying to beat it into the ground, just making a point)...Others have gotten the same cam running on the same distro. On many different pages, including the site for the largest driver for cams (spca5xx) says my specific cam model, on the same distro I was using, is supported. I even brought the question up in ubuntu's forums, and after many requests of , "what does this output give you, what does that output you, etc" I got a bunch of "I dont know" answers.

Well that does indeed suck and as I've never owned a webcam I'll have to give you another "I don't know" answer. But I can't say that I've not seen any hardware supposedly supported by Windows magically not work. =)

My point is, Linux is still not as plug and play friendly as windows, which is something the general public demands for desktop use.

It depends on what you're plugging in, in many ways Linux is just as if not more plug and play friendly. I'm sure my opinion is tainted but my experience with Windows drivers and their installation has been extremely poor. On Linux 99% of the time there isn't even an installation step, you just plug it in and go. But when you get hardware that falls into that 1% it can suck pretty bad.

I realize alot of the problem is most linux drivers are reverse engineered from windows drivers, because manufacturers dont make linux drivers. Not all, of course, but certainly a majority.

Actually I might contest that, at least in recent driver numbers since no doubt most of the older drivers are going to be reverse engineered. And I don't have any numbers but a ton of manufacturers for storage controllers, NICs, input devices, motherboard resources, etc are releasing either GPL'd drivers or specs these days. It's just the things that garner the most attention like video cards, wifi, etc are the ones that manufacturers are being dicks about. And IME the Linux drivers are usually easier to setup (because there is no setup usually) and more stable than their Windows counterparts, the tradeoff being that sometimes all of the same features aren't there.

And until Linux can do everything I can do in Windows, Im not gonna switch. Dont misunderstand me...I dont mean LIKE windows does it. I just mean...does it.

It can do all of that, it's just a PITA in some areas right now. An iDVD-like app for Linux would be awesome because right now you've either got CLI tools like dvdauthor that aren't quite there yet even with front-ends like qdvdauthor or over the top professional stuff like Cinelerra. Actually Kino might do what you want, I don't really know enough about that stuff to judge very well though.

I will also caveat this by saying I am a lazy user, and admit it. Im 40, and a network engineer who has, over the years, learned some pretty wierd OS's and hardware line item config languages. I dont want to have to learn yet one more. I want to click and be done. (For the most part) Windows does this for me.

I don't blame you, I consider myself extremely lazy as well which is why I don't like fighting with Windows any more. Linux generally requires a bit more work up front but in the long run it's a lot simpler, once everything is setup it just keeps working indefinitely. It's actually bit me in the ass before because I'll set something up and then forget how it works, months or years later I'll have change something or move it to another box and have no idea how I set it up the first time.

 

[blackangst1]

LOL it's funny we have the same opinion albeit on opposite sides 😛

Im probably just frustrated now because I have put so many hours into try to get Linux to work for me...Im a little burned out. Dont misunderstand me...Im not anti-Linux, quite the opposite. Im also not one to say "Linux is too hard" because, in my short time, 95% of it was pretty straight forward. Unfortunately I fall into the 5%.

I always keep an eye on distrowatch, and will continue doing so. Im confidant the community will come up with something that WILL work for me. That much I know. But for now...Windows for me.

Now that we've derailed the topic LOL

Ahem

Yes, Vista requires more resources than XP. Yes it "can" be finicky about hardware. But, for $400 you can buy a pre-made box that will run it just fine. Hardware is soooo cheap now. Same thing when XP came out people were calling it a resource hog (compared to win2k and win98). But now we roll forward.

I do like some of the security features in Vista, although it will be interesting to see how long it takes before we start seeing serious security holes. As far as "usability"...well....it is a gorgeous GUI, and works very well, IMHO. My only complaint (and many others as well) is that in the file browser, there is no single "up" button to go up in the heirchy, or tree. Real annoying. I have an AMD64 3200+, 1 gig memory, 256 Nvidia 6800 Ultra vid card, and I was able to run Aero smoothly, using about 300k of memory. Again, that is with options on I wouldnt normally use.

*shrug* we'll see once it's released to the public.

 

[Markbnj]

I decided to install Vista in dual boot with my XP Pro setup tonight, and I have to say I was pretty impressed. It correctly configured my 7600GT and came right up in 1920 x 1200 32-bit. It has native support for my 550Pro TV Wonder, and it works great with Media Center (rendering qual. not as good as BTV in XP though, might be the drivers). The beta drivers for the Sound Blaster went in and work fine. The install was much easier than XP, and overall I would say the system boots faster, loads and unloads apps faster, and shuts down faster. Of course it is brand new. The aero interface looks great, and I think there are some real functional improvements. Graphics wise it handles the UI much better than XP. Almost no flicker dragging big alpha-blended windows around. I guess that's the benefit of building it on directx.

Naturally User Account Control had to go. Ugh. But overall I think it is a pretty compelling upgrade for Windows users. It certainly ladles on the eye-candy, but the guts feel very solid and efficient as well.

 

[Tarrant64]

blackangst1, my only comment on the cheap hardware is. everything seems to be cheap except for ram.

buying 2gb-4gb of ram costs almost 1/3 of some cheap system setups. it's sad. otherwise, yeah everything is cheap.