On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 at 10:23:06PM +0000, Alan Pope wrote:
>
> I installed Vista Business Edition on my pretty bog standard Dell laptop. I
> was surprised to find that it didn't find the sound card and I had to go to
> dells website to get a driver.
>
> That said the suspend/resume stuff works very well.
>
> Although it only lasted on that machine for a matter of days before it
> annoyed me enough to reinstall ubuntu over the top (which found the sound
> card and all the other hardware).
People keep comparing Vista to Me, but I think it's better to compare
Vista to NT4. Like NT4 Vista:
* Needs more RAM than most existing machines have
* More CPU grunt that existing machines have
* More GPU grunt that existing machines have
* Isn't compatible with lots of hardware and legacy software
* Is it self quite different from Microsoft's own legacy systems
However when NT4 came out Microsoft had Win95 to placate users, most
Win 3.x users were happy to switch to Win95 and only a few suffered
with NT4. After several goes Win98/Win2K they eventually created a
hybrid home/work version that most people were happy with, XP.
For all it's many sins, XP works on older/cheaper hardware than Vista,
supports most hardware and runs most Windows software. While I don't
doubt that Windows users will mostly end up running Vista, I can see why
most of them don't want to be the first to run it...
Microsoft really need to get away from their monolithic bloated design
of Windows, they must embrace a totally modular light weight design.
Something like Unix may be a good design to copy, how about a new version
based on a BSD kernel, a full POSIX user-land, legacy support via a VM,
and separate desktop and gaming environments built onto of the lightweight
core...
Even Microsoft can't afford to develop a new monolithic OS like
Vista again, it cost too much, took too long and is missing almost all
the new features they promised, plus it's proved about as popular as
a dose of syphilis.
--
Adam Trickett
Overton, HANTS, UK
Good advice is always certain to be ignored,
but that's no reason not to give it
-- Agatha Christie
