Windows 7, Mac OS X Leopard & Linux
Recently I came across a video with a guy showing off how well Windows 7 runs on older hardware. He had a 1.3Ghz Celeron M notebook that has pretty much the same hardware inside as my notebook. He showed how it took a little less than half an hour to install. How it boots up pretty quickly. How each application it comes with starts up pretty fast and how fast media center runs on it. (I lost the video otherwise I would have posted it here)
That's all well and good. However on older hardware such as that there's one major caveat. It can't run aero or any of its effects. Now you might say what do you expect on such old hardware?Actually, having experienced the other two major operating systems on similar hardware I expect quite a bit actually. I'm also not too amazed.... I mean Vista is practically the only modern OS that has performance problems on said hardware.
My notebook, which is the same as his apart from brand and look of the chassis can... even with its intel integrated graphics run all the effects in the 3D card composited windowing engines of either Linux or Mac OS X Leopard. But apparently not even with Windows 7 would it be able to run Aero glass or any of its effects.
Not only that but in Leopard it can run Core Image hardware accelerated so I can get the blurring behind certain transparent things such as the menubar, menus, drop down sheets etc. and I can also get the effect in dashboard when you open a widget that's kind of like you dropped it onto a table of water with the ripples... it all doesn't run slow either.
When I tried Linux with Compiz I could get the respective effects there too. So what's wrong with Windows? They are accessing the same hardware. Is their way so much more demanding than Mac OS X that it can't run on the same hardware without turning all that off? It could be that the drivers just aren't ready but it could also be that Microsoft just isn't supporting it because people have the perception that it would slow down the computer. Well..... under Leopard and Linux it doesn't.
That's all well and good. However on older hardware such as that there's one major caveat. It can't run aero or any of its effects. Now you might say what do you expect on such old hardware?Actually, having experienced the other two major operating systems on similar hardware I expect quite a bit actually. I'm also not too amazed.... I mean Vista is practically the only modern OS that has performance problems on said hardware.
My notebook, which is the same as his apart from brand and look of the chassis can... even with its intel integrated graphics run all the effects in the 3D card composited windowing engines of either Linux or Mac OS X Leopard. But apparently not even with Windows 7 would it be able to run Aero glass or any of its effects.
Not only that but in Leopard it can run Core Image hardware accelerated so I can get the blurring behind certain transparent things such as the menubar, menus, drop down sheets etc. and I can also get the effect in dashboard when you open a widget that's kind of like you dropped it onto a table of water with the ripples... it all doesn't run slow either.
When I tried Linux with Compiz I could get the respective effects there too. So what's wrong with Windows? They are accessing the same hardware. Is their way so much more demanding than Mac OS X that it can't run on the same hardware without turning all that off? It could be that the drivers just aren't ready but it could also be that Microsoft just isn't supporting it because people have the perception that it would slow down the computer. Well..... under Leopard and Linux it doesn't.