Comments | jeff_duntemann: Why Vista?

jeff_duntemann

Why Vista?

Aug 21, 2007 13:56

Slashdot aggregated an item indicating that when you play audio files in Vista, network performance slows down. Nobody's quite sure what's happening, nor (more crucially) whether it's a bug-i.e., accidental-or a consequence of a feature. If the latter, the feature is likely to be ( Read more... )

drm, windows, hardware, software

Comments 14

johnridley August 21 2007, 19:53:42 UTC

Vista isn't necessary, as you say. Neither is XP. The only thing Microsoft has added that I care about in the last 7 years is remote desktop (which works better and faster than VNC, but I could live with VNC if I had to ( ... )

jeff_duntemann August 21 2007, 20:52:12 UTC

Crossover Linux looks promising, and for what it does I think it's pretty cheap, cheap enough to try out and abandon if it doesn't do what I need. Crossover even runs Visio, though the main Wine HQ site doesn't list Visio.

The other alternative is to get a Mac and run InDesign for the Mac, and use Crossover Mac (or something like Parallels) to run Windows software on Mac hardware. Still researching it, but new paths seem to open (and become clearer) all the time.

anonymous August 21 2007, 20:51:43 UTC

Yeah. What you said. Only I prefer to run a separate Linux and Windows box.

In the past, when I bought a new (Windows) computer, I'd load the old one up with Linux.

I think my next new machine will be a Linux box, and I'll keep my existing Windows XP system for Photoshop, Tivo Desktop, and other Windows-only apps.

The Linux rdesktop utility seems to work perfectly with XP's remote desktop feature, so I won't even need a KVM to use both systems.

After fooling around with Mandrake for years, Ubuntu Feisty was the tipping point for me, when desktop Linux became preferable to Windows.

shoei_mike August 21 2007, 21:00:04 UTC

I've never really been satisfied with Wine. Windows apps just always look wrong. However, The Delphi 7 IDE does run. I'm currently trying VMware server on Ubuntu 7.04 host for a guest Windows XP system, and I'm quite happy with that. VMware is not a straight package install - there's some googling and fiddling required.

I'm guessing that Win2K isn't so much trouble, but with XP, you need to hold off activation until you have installed all the VMWare drivers (after the initial WinXP install), since changes in "hardware" can trigger XP activation. Also best not to fiddle with some of the VM settings once you're going, for the same reason.

jeff_duntemann August 21 2007, 21:08:04 UTC

If activation is an issue, I'll just stick with Win2K. I have yet to find anything about XP that would cause me to prefer it to Win2K, and although I have a lab machine with XP on it--I need to be familiar with XP for professional reasons--all my paying work is done under Win2K, so that I can fool with hardware and not have to play that stupid "mother, may I" game.

There are still font issues with Linux. Windows always seems to render text better for some reason, though I keep hoping that this will change.

chris_gerrib August 21 2007, 21:26:54 UTC

We've been running XP on PCs in my shop for some time and it works well. We haven't tried Vista yet.

cutriss August 21 2007, 23:03:18 UTC

What were your issues with tablets?

I know the technology is still maturing, but I've had the privilege of using two of them from Toshiba in my previous job, and the experience was so good that my wife decided to get a Tecra M4 herself. Linux support is (as always) trailing behind on it...but by and large it's actually really functional, even as just a normal workstation without the tablet functionality. I've usually been impressed with Toshiba's middle-to-upper class equipment (we've previously owned a Tecra 8000 and a Satellite 2805 and I've heavily used a Satellite Pro 430), and this was no exception.

jeff_duntemann August 22 2007, 17:33:53 UTC

My tablet is a Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad X41. It's a sluggish system with an immense amount of mouse stutter, juvenile UI Z-order anomalies in the task bar, and an inexplicable inability to recognize certain handwritten words no matter how clear the penmanship, including my last name. Although I value it as an ebook reader, and it does a tolerable job on email and Web access, it's close to worthless for anything else. Some of this may be due to Lenovo's mistakes--I have no way to know short of buying another tablet, which I don't intend to do.

cutriss August 22 2007, 17:53:28 UTC

Actually, some of the "office supply" type of retailers and CompUSA do carry tablets in-store. You would probably have to have them remove the display model for a proper demo, but it'd give you a bit more of an impression. The only downside is that they're less likely to carry the real performance models as opposed to the $1500-let's-put-all-the-crapware-we-can-on-this-thing system ( ... )