[Prosper]

As always, a new Operating system or platform (Vista) will have bugs, and whoever buys one will face the consequences of these.
You will have to wait at least one year or perhaps more until they get rid of them..then when it seems to be working fine, a new operating system will take its place, for the cycle to repeat itself again and again...
Please don't waste your hard earned cash in this game. Yes, I know that when you buy a new computers now, you are "forced" into having Vista as the default Operating System..that is indeed sad. Might be good to buy a "generic" computer with XP instead of a branded computer that comes with Vista?

[Russell Allen]

This is an interesting discussion. Myself, I run linux (Zenwalk) on a fairly nice 64-bit AMD, (swmbo and my boy run XP just for their games). Cruises along with barely any load at all on my system. Less OS load means more horsepower left over for the apps that really need it.

I've been playing with PC's for a while now (30 yrs), I started with teletypes when I was 11. I'm not really a noob anymore :P I find that I keep coming back to *nix. I love the freedom to do whatever I want with it. I'm not a programmer (normally), just a real power user, but when I have a problem I can just google around and usually find whatever fix I need. I almost always have the option of contacting the original author of whatever program is giving me grief, and I can usually expect an answer back.

This is a stark contrast to MS "servicing its' customers". A closed system is just that, closed. If it isn't exactly what you need, you have to work 10 times as hard to make it function. I read above about nielw20 taking years to tweak win98 (been there brother). That's because he had to wait for the community to reverse-engineer the OS enough that he could get to the adjustments he needed. Why not just start with an open system to begin with?

There are lots of good reasons to go with either open or closed systems, but they usually boil down to CONTROL. Is your vendor in control of your system, or are you? I don't like MS telling me I can't do this or that, and keeping tabs on whatever I do (I have seen the hidden log files on my own system, you have to work hard to get to them). Even if I'm not doing anything illegal, do I want someone to be able to figure out what I'm doing? I might lose my competitive edge, my latest design, or my customer list... And Vista is loaded with more backdoors than any other system up to this time.

[aubrey]

Ubuntu "just works".

Been trying to get Linux working properly since early ninetys - Some install - Some dont - NONE manage to get the network card working!!!
Must have burned over 50 installation disks.
Tried "Feisty Fawn" (only a Linux geek could have thought of that name ! ) the other week.
First try bombed out (my fault - no partition available )
Second try went ok - so far so good.
It then gave me a message about updates being available so I clicked OK just to see what happened.
Not only had Ubuntu installed the network interface correctly, it had detected all the ADSL settings, firewall passwords and all the other nonsense which normally takes me an hour with a new win2k installation (a monthly occurrence in my case)
I was totally gobsmacked!
Now the question is - Is there a Linux app that would equate to Visual Basic?
Best
Aubrey

[NinerSevenTango]

Now the question is - Is there a Linux app that would equate to Visual Basic?

You mean Visual Basic, or dot net crap?

I haven't tried them myself yet, but there are a bunch of them, Hbasic and Gambas getting good reviews. Check this page out:
http://basic.mindteq.com/Tables.asp.

Hbasic makes standalone executables, Gambas does not.

Ubuntu is nice because it is newbie friendly and has loads and loads of apps and drivers available for it. But I rarely boot it any more since I found Puppy. Not as many apps available, but it's newbie friendly with an excellent forum, new apps are being added all the time, and it runs entirely in RAM if you like (I like), so it's just outrageously fast! You can burn an ISO and see whether it sees your hardware (for most people it 'just works'), and you can boot off the CD and leave your prefs and installed apps in a single file on your HD if you want. Then later you can install to a partition. Very flexible. My computer was hot stuff 5 years ago when I built it, now it runs faster than it ever did under WinBloze. Lately I've been experimenting with QCAD running under Puppy Linux.

--97T--

[Prosper]

Well, it seems that many knowledgeable people are going to experiment with the different flavours of Linux. Good on them, because MS is going down the tubes if it doesn't be carefull. It is too pricey for what it is, and you can imagine having to pay for extra "seats" when you get the "server" version of its operating system etc. I think the only reason why people keep using "that MS operating system" is because they find it too difficult to change. However, sooner or later, as more people become wise up, they will try to experiment with other operating systems and finally come up with something of a choice.
Russel's comments are correct, and there are many like him in that position of transition. Thanks for reading this, I hope many will take the plunge into some reasonable alternative.

[Russell Allen]

I've been looking into Python. It comes on dang near every flavor of linux, I'm pretty sure it's on MacOSX, and it's easily installed on Windoze. It's interpreted, like java, but it is fully open and and real easy language to work with. You can write your code on any platform and expect it to run on any other.

There are a LOT of free on-line tutorials, and code for it. A nice intro is "Think Like a Computer Scientist in Python" http://www.computer-books.us/python.php
I got to playing with it, and in a couple of days goofing I managed to write a simple app that would take a jpg and convert it into g-code for engraving on a desktop machine. It was just a proof of concept, but not far from being a useful app. It used the Python Imaging Library, also free.

Now I'm going to have to locate it because someone is going to want it, right?

[thkoutsidthebox]

Since I have to use a laptop for my CAD design work, and since, so far, laptops only allow for 2Gs of RAM, I'll be sticking with XP for a long, long time.

I have a Dell Laptop and when I bought it a few months ago it had the option to get 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB, so you can get more than 2 with a laptop: The catch?....they charged €2000 more for those extra 2GB .

Well, it seems that many knowledgeable people are going to experiment with the different flavours of Linux. Good on them, because MS is going down the tubes if it doesn't be carefull. It is too pricey for what it is, and you can imagine having to pay for extra "seats" when you get the "server" version of its operating system etc. I think the only reason why people keep using "that MS operating system" is because they find it too difficult to change. However, sooner or later, as more people become wise up, they will try to experiment with other operating systems and finally come up with something of a choice.
Russel's comments are correct, and there are many like him in that position of transition. Thanks for reading this, I hope many will take the plunge into some reasonable alternative.

Well I was very happy with Internet Explorer 7, and even touted its virtues on a different forum. Then I had to try Firefox simply so I wouldn't be viewed as closed minded. Well, I haven't loaded IE since! I need XP for running games , but would like to be able to load Linux from a disk to try it out. I have no intention of switching to Vista until I get it on my next computer (Not for a few years) even though this one is 'Vista Capable' (Or so it says). So where do I get this Linux and Ubuntu download........

As an aside, I miss Windows 3.1. We used to have it on a 386 ( 30Mb HardDrive, 64Mb RAM, No video card, no 'stuff' ) and it was the hardest version to move on from when MS released its successor ('95 I think). I can't get a proper DOS shell with any system since.

[cyclestart]

So where do I get this Linux and Ubuntu download........

Google ubuntu or canonical and you'll find an iso quick enough. How about this instead?
http://www.linuxcnc.org/content/view/21/4/lang,en/

This disk includes emc2 as well as the usual ubuntu apps. It runs live in RAM so no changes are made to the hard disk unless you choose to do so.

Russell

Post that thing if you don't mind sharing! I play* a bit with python and would love to have a look.

* "Play" being the operative word in this case.

[NinerSevenTango]

A lot of people try this one and become quickly hooked, you would be missing out it you didn't at least give it a try .....


http://www.puppylinux.com/cd-puppy.htm

You can run in RAM off the CD. There are also set-ups that allow you to 'roll your own' CD with your favorite preferences and apps, or for individual purposes. So a lot of people do that, and put the .iso's up for download. A nice one, made to appeal to younger people and with an XP-like interface, is called TeenPuppy, and it's worth checking out as well. But I'd start with the normal distrubution first.

--97T--

[mehran]

Always try the new one but,, just trust the oldest...

[lfbrown]

I have a Dell Laptop and when I bought it a few months ago it had the option to get 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB, so you can get more than 2 with a laptop: The catch?....they charged €2000 more for those extra 2GB .

I was unaware that 4Gigs was available in an LT, but since I already own a fully loaded Acer (I know, low rent but it works) I'll probably use it as long as it'll boot up.

2Gigs with XP Pro and WinTask Pro makes my Rhino 4.0 zip right along and ProtoWizard is acceptable.

[daedalus]

You mean Visual Basic, or dot net crap?

--97T--

dont you mean Mono project free software crap?

Dot net is far easier and quicker then anything else around for serious app development, and supports half a dozen different language choices. It sure beats the likes of trolltechs QT (sorry to any KDE fanboys here), and thanks to mono it compiles under linux too (albeit badly, but its getting better as mono gets worked on).

[Switcher]

I'll run XP, until GoogleOS is ready.

.

[NinerSevenTango]

dont you mean Mono project free software crap?

Dot net is far easier and quicker then anything else around for serious app development, and supports half a dozen different language choices. It sure beats the likes of trolltechs QT (sorry to any KDE fanboys here), and thanks to mono it compiles under linux too (albeit badly, but its getting better as mono gets worked on).

Sorry, didn't mean to step on your favorite -- I was just reflecting my own experiences with it. For serious applications, I guess you are correct, but I concluded that I would rather go for C of some flavor if I needed to dive into it that deep anyway. But for my non-serious application, I found another language, free, that I used to write my windows application. Got the application working in about the same time it took me to try out and finally give up on VB dot net, just because I couldn't do simple things with it. I got tired of Googling, for once. I have a very time-consuming and intense job and can only program hobby deep, but I needed some serious networking and file functionality, plus the ability to work at a byte level. With more education I might have concluded differently. I must confess I don't know anything at all about any of the versions for Linux. Yet.

Cheers,

--97T--

[Fursphere]

Ubuntu Linux here.

If I can help it, I'll help run a Microsoft (or Mac!) OS on a computer I own again. They can keep the "big brother" DRM junk.

[mehran]

98ME Best for a virus chalenge...

[tobyaxis]

Looks like a lot of us are staying with XP until Vista is up to par or we are forced to change our O/S.

I hear lots of stuff about Vista. Some good, some bad. I have also heard that XP had it's issues when it was released. So all in all it seems that MS will never release a functional New O/S in the future.

Cheers!!!!!!

[sixstring]

No Go On Vista For Me

[thkoutsidthebox]

As far as I see it, aside from any other issues, the main point is "What will Vista do that XP won't?". I think people couldn't be bothered changing OS when the system they use at the moment works fine. Why spend all that money, especially when you know another OS will be released in a few years. Might aswell stay with XP until something supersedes Vista and save some money.

[eSilviu]

let's see:
- XP -1G HDD acceptable as SO
- Vista -8G HDD - just OS
- linux - live, 4G DVD (or to talk about 700M compressed CD?) OS + drivers for almost anything + many, many software pachets