Hasta La Vista
Well, I've lived with Windows Vista for a couple of weeks now and I think I've formed enough of an opinion on Microsoft's latest operating system to make a decision. I'm deleting it and replacing it with something better.
I'm not going to go into a detailed and tireless review as I'm sure enough has been written on that subject over the past 11 months. Vista is not for me (yet or ever, I'm not sure). There are things I like there are things I dislike but fundamentally it's just too slow and cumbersome in general use. I have this immense computing power perched on my lap and it feels like it's been crippled by this poorly designed and executed OS.
Is it Microsoft's fault they've created a dog or are the hardware manufacturers to blame for poor support? Who cares? I just know it's broken. Nvidia have for many years been my preferred graphics card supplier but they're behind the curve with drivers for Vista and I just can't live with poor performance from my graphics card. Blender has some serious issues running under Vista which could be down to poor drivers from Nvidia or Microsoft's decision to cripple OpenGL (to force adoption of their DirectX) or even Blender itself, whoever is to blame Vista must carry the can in my mind.
So, I'm away to order Windows XP and will install this as my primary OS for the foreseeable future. The only decision I have to make is which flavour of XP to go for. I can get OEM licences (yes I know not strictly legal to install on my laptop but there you go) of XP Home (£52.22) XP Professional (£87.57) and XP Media Centre 2005 (£67.80) from ebuyer.com. I'll probably go for the Media Centre version as it is really just XP Professional with Media Centre add on running on top. I'm sure Microsoft can live with the disappointment of losing me as a Vista user as I'll effectively be paying for two licences, one for Vista that came with my laptop and one to replace it with something that works.
With the release of Ubuntu 7.10 earlier this week I'm itching to see what a 64bit OS can do with this machine. I upgraded from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.10 on an old Dual processor 1Ghz PIII machine today. The install went pretty seamlessly but I had a few issues with screen resolution and Compiz settings. Despite the leaps and bounds that Linux has undergone in the past year there is still too much (zero is what they need to aim for) use of the terminal and command line for basic setup tasks. More on that subject later.
posted by Ricky Dee at
8:03 PM
2 Comments:
Hmm, I have been toying with the idea of Vista for a while, but it doesn't seem to be generating much in the way of positive vibes. I'll just have to hope Gears of War is 'fixed' in the same way as Halo2!
By
David, at 25 October 2007 23:05
More so than any OS before it don't even consider "upgrading" an existing machine to Vista. It will really only make even the slighest sense if you get it installed on a "comaptible" brand spanking new machine.
As for DirectX10 gaming.... wait until the graphic card drivers are rock solid (could be a long wait).
By
Ricky Dee, at 26 October 2007 12:00
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