I’m curious as to what experience you’re basing this statement on - what distributions have you used, and how recently?
The troubles I had with installing Linux were because I tried using a 64-bit version of Kubuntu. It’s not as well supported as the 32-bit distros, and I ran into some weird problems. I tried 32-bit Ubuntu, and it installed faster than Windows XP, I was instantly online, and getting it to use my video card was a matter of turning on the drivers, which Ubuntu pointed out for me on startup. Firefox was preinstalled, and getting Flash running simply involved going to Adobe’s website and following the instructions on how to install for Linux. The GUI looks clean and most of the stuff a person would access often is laid out in an easy to find manner.
The biggest problem a new user will face with Linux at this point is unlearning most of the habits they picked up in Windows, IMO. Well, okay, that and if they have hardware that’s not well supported, Linux may have trouble working. The list of supported hardware devices grows constantly, however. Most of the popular stuff works out of the box, and the rest will likely have instructions somewhere a person can follow to make their hardware work.
Who needs Vista? Fie, I say, fie!
ETA: Oh, yes, and Ubuntu has no trouble reading NTFS drives. I have three physical hard drives, and I only had to reformat one to install the actual OS. The other two are still NTFS but perfectly accessible.
Thing is, when the comparison is Linux vs Vista, the issue of hardware compatibility isn’t something that can earn Linux a black mark anymore - because a) as you say, Linux is getting pretty good now and b) Vista isn’t.
I’m with Sunspace. I was looking for a new desktop, something midgrade or above so that I wouldn’t have to worry about having enough power for photo editing. Seeing the pricing being so close and remembering that I’d probably have driver issues and relearn a fair amount of stuff with Vista, I figured that I could just as easily relearn it in MacOS.
I’m surprisingly ecstatic with the iMac. Only one device that has no Mac driver (Sony photo printer–it figures) and one program not fully featured on MacOS (Yahoo Voice Messenger). “Just” 1G/RAM and I can have 30 or more windows open in my browser (Opera), MP3’s playing in the background (VLC Player), and work on a photo in the foreground (Photoshop Elements) with no noticeable slowdown in user interface response. Who knows how much horsepower I’d need to do this in Vista? Not me, nor do I care to find out.
Message from Caractacus to Microsoft: Money talks, bull$hit walks. I mean, money talks, Vista walks.
Do you have the 64-bit version? Although the 32-bit version is supposed to support up to 4GB, many people report having difficulty accessing more than 3.5GB.
By accessing 3.5GB, do you mean in a single problem? Because Windows will reserve a bunch of address space in every program for itself, and 0.5 GB sounds just about right for the amount of space reserved.
I just recently got a Dell inspiron 1501 and didn’t have TOO much of that cra on it. Yes, I got Vista and I like it.
My next laptop might be either the Vostro or the XPC. Can the Vostro be beefy enough to run nifty games? The carrot of “no crappy pre-loaded hardware” dangled in front of me is a little enticing.
Dude, where does one get all that ram for 80 bucks?
Actually, I was told by MS customer support, when my harddrive failed on my previous computer that the key I had for XP, with the installation disks would not be legal, since replacing the main harddrive for the computer would make it, in the opinion of MS, a new computer.
Tech support people unrelated to MS confirmed this was a possibility, and that they couldn’t predict which harddrives would freak out the key, or not. It was one of the reasons I ended up getting a new computer, rather than repairing the old one.
Same here. It is just slooooooow.