Had to install Vista today - no joke.

[Bongo5HH]

So, as part of a project I installed Vista Home Premium today. All in all it wasn't a "bad" installation experience although there were a number of points along the way where I was left with no idea what was happening.

The system had to reboot several times. After 1 hour and 20 minutes I have a fully updated install of Vista, but with no productivity software installed. The look is ok.. might have even been impressive before I got used to KDE4. Now I find the details are just a bit messy. Other than a bit of surfing I haven't used it much.

Finding the video drivers was really no harder than finding Envy to install them on Kubuntu.. maybe even a bit easier because there was no issue with dependancies.

Finding the rest of the drivers was a bit of a pain.... I couldn't remember what model my mouse is... no name on the thing and Windows didn't detect it....

A full Kubuntu install is about 2 hours for me, that is including the installation and complete tweaking of the system and productivity software. So Vista is similar in time to get running, but it's far from tweaked out or productive.

Kev

[Marcb]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

Hi Kev,

Well, I've been a Vista user for almost a year myself. I have to admit that when it comes to installing the system, it's not all that hard. However, when it comes to added functionality (like with all Windows products) it is very limited compared to Linux.
The main reason I was tired of the whole M$ deal is because of the costs. Vista is really way too expensive. I had bought XP when it just came out, reasoning that since I'm a developer myself, one should always pay for software products to not rob developers from their job. While I still think this is true, it has to be reasonable though. Having to fork out every couple of years over $500 just to use your computer is a bit out of range for my standards.

With Vista I bought myself Office 2007. Total costs >1000 EU. And this just to be able to work with my computer. We like playing games on the computer also in our family, and I have a shelf with computer games of which I don't even want to calculate the total costs.
On top of that you have to worry about viruses, worms, trojans, etc. A good virus scanner is easily about 70-80 EU on top of that each year. Security in Vista really isn't that good compared to Linux altogether either.

Now I might not be a big fan of KDE4 (personal taste I would say) but I would always pick that over Vista without a thought.

I mean, consider this:
1) Totally free OS
2) Quality software in just about any specialty (also for professional usage)
3) You can actually contribute to the end product.
And last, but not least:
4) Great community

See, I can be picky with things (a bit my nature) but overall I think that the Ubuntu/Kubuntu people are doing a heck of a good job with their distros.
I currently have Hardy x86_64 KDE3.5 running with almost no problems whatsoever. Every now and then something crashes, but in Vista I had that happening more frequently even.
I have several alternatives for drivers/software and I can configure, change, add to my system as much as I want. Most of all, I know (if I'm willing to study a bit) exactly what my system does and why. This was one of my main annoyances with Windows altogether: you never know exactly what it is doing and when something doesn't work, a lot of times you cannot troubleshoot it because the system is not transparent.

Now with Kubuntu, I can try any software that is out there for Linux and see if I like it (no charge), I can make it look the way I want to, using the tools I pick, and it's stable and immensely more secure than Windows.
Would like to use SELinux for security as well, but it seems to have some issues still, but once those are taken care of I'll certainly install that as well.

So I understand that you feel that Vista isn't that much of a pain, which I recon it can be if you indeed just browse a bit, but once you get to all the other elements, I think Linux blows it out of the water anytime.

Also, Vista took a lot of elements from Linux. The list is too long to write down here, but the people at M$ obviously tried to copy a lot of things from Linux.

Then when it comes to architecture I think Windows will never be able to match Linux, because the original philosophy behind the design is flawed compared to Linux. Linux is multi-user and multi-tasking by nature, Windows (which still uses Dos-like backgrounds) isn't and uses workarounds to get it to act as such. Needless to say, here also Linux does a better job.

I'll stop here. :P

Anyway, enjoy Vista for as long as you will like it. I vowed to never use it again myself. :P

Marc

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

hehehe Marc,

I've been using Linux for 2.5 years. The Vista install is for a project and Kubuntu will continue to be my daily driver.

Last year I installed WinXP and reported on my experiences with that compared to Kubuntu. Of course Kubuntu trashes the XP install experience simply because XP is antiquated.

I thought I'd share similar thoughts from my perspective on Vista.

As a funny note... Vista still sits there with nothing installed on it. I haven't even played with it.. don't even feel drawn to.

I'll install some audio software on it tonight and then I'll see how it fairs.

Kev

[Marcb]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

Ah, you had me worried there for a sec mate. :P

Wouldn't want you to switch to Vista, hehe.

Marc

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

I produce a radio show, and I do not have the audio skills to manually manipulate the audio tracks to sound as good as the plugins in SONAR 7 will automatically. We need more quality, and I need it to happen quickly so that has lead me to install Vista so i can use SONAR.

I'm not all that happy about it.. but hey at least now when I complain about Vista in the future I'll actually know what I'm talking about.

Kev

[Marcb]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

Ah, I see.

While browsing for different distros when I was still trying to make up my mind which one to go for, I also ran into one that specialises itself in software for audo/video production software.
I cannot remember at all which distro it was, but you might want to try to do a search. It looked like they had quite some professional software running.

Of course I don't know if that would be sufficient for what you need, but you might give it a try if you're not sure.

Marc

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

Yup there is some very good stuff. I've been producing the show in Kubuntu for a year now. I've tried Ubuntu Studio, Studio64, and JACKLab also.

If I were more skilled, or had more time to gain more skill I would surely stick to linux. But we need instant results. So we're going with the system that will delliver that. There are drawbacks.. not the least of which is nearly $800 out of pocket.



Kev

[asharin]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

Did you try sonar in WINE? Just asking out of curiosity really, never tried it myself, I use Reaper in wine for my music work, not ideal, but it'll do til the linux audio apps mature a little more.

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

I considered it, but after spending $500 on SONAR another 118 to be sure it worked seemed like a good idea.

OH as I sit here listening to the "mystery music" of my HDD chugging away for no apparent reason (I'm in Vista right now) I beginning to remember why I despised windows enough to learn how to use Linux by going cold turkey from Windows.

lol

Oh I was right in the middle of producing Friday's show.. and SONAR crashed... lost an hour's work.. I forgot how often you need to save your work in Windows too...

lol

Kev

[dibl]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

This probably isn't the moment to offer up new ideas, but could that Sonar program be installed on Win XP, in a VMWare Player or Virtual Box virtual machine (on Linux)? Just a thought. My Win XP virtual machine can play audio as long as I don't have the audio in use under Linux.

p.s. I suppose Vista could be installed on a virtual machine -- but I haven't read much about it.

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

lol

I suppose it could be, but it's already a resource hog!

I actually don't mind having it on Vista as a separate system to what I normally use. Since there is VERY little chance I'll be logged into Vista to do anything other than work on the show I won't likely break it. Normally I break Kubuntu and then have to get it working again in time to get the show done.. ya I know poor planning...

lol I'm not really all that smart.. but having the show done on windows pretty much guarantees that I won't be using the system any more than I have to.

[immrlizard]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

Actually, if you turn off the shine to vista then it isn't any worse then xp. If you are looking for functionality over flare, that will work. I tested Vista from before RC1 and thought it was nice, but wasn't worth investing any money into.

The next version of windows is right around the corner. You may want to look forward to that. I will stick with Linux. I have been using the latest one since alpha 3 and I am very impressed. I am still a relative noobie when it comes to Linux, (after supporting windows for 10 years) but am learning. I even have a Ubuntu machine running at work doing actual work. (vmware server)

I would think that it would be best to run sonar in wine though if you can.

[maestrobwh1]

Re: Had to install Vista today - no joke.

First, I agree with the post right before mine. It is a fancy XP. There had been nothing wrong with XP in my opinion other than any install I ever had just became slower and slower to boot with age... after about 6 months, it took 3 or 4 times as long to be able to actually launch an application after booting. I had to have a firewall, a virus scanner, several adware removal/blocking tools... and it was just absurd. I switched to Kubuntu around the time XP came out. I tinkered with Linux perhaps for 6 years so far since Knoppix 3.4...

Linux has always been faster and obviously, some distro will always be open source or free. If you need an application for something, it is generally free.

Key point for me, it has always booted faster, programs launch faster, and it is very easy to customize. Sure, sometimes I have had to mess around to get some piece of hardware to work after installing or upgrading.

I have to use XP at work and I do like it fine, but we are switching to Vista in the next few months and our IT department seems to be unaware that most of our computers have 512 MB RAM or less. Our student laptops have 256... and they seem to be unaware that with 512 MB, it is barely usable. Life working a public school... I have tried to fight this battle in vain.