Vista, Vista, Vista...

[usayit]

FYI, Windows has ~64,000 known viruses, and as many as 4,000 are currently active. It also runs dog slow compared to any Linux distro (givent he same hardware).

Part of the reason why Linux does not seem to have the viruses that plaque windows is the number of people running unix at home. It takes time and effort to discover and exploit a vulnerability is considerable. People who put time into the effort are not going to go after such a small minority group running Linux at home. Its just not as fun as developing a virus that affects millions of Windows users.

Believe me... the vulnerabilities are there in Linux and in every other operating system. My red hat box still (needs to have more patches applied) has a memory leak in the sshd process. Had some a$$ in China running a attempt login script in a loop against it unti it ran out of memory.

Yeh.. there's a bit of an advantage of being an open source product. Yeh... its going to run a whole lot faster than Windows. It has its strengths.. also its weaknesses.

BTW... if you are die hard UNIX or Linux user.. Mac OS X fits nicely. Excellent interface with the backbone and core of a Unix box... after all.. Mac OS X is UNIX... FreeBSD to be specific.

 

[usayit]

Back on topic... I like the previous poster's idea of buying a Vista box from Dell that fits your needs. If Vista doesn't work for yah (and I've heard a lot of complaints), just load Windows XP.

 

[DSLR noob]

I say buy a Mac, partition the drive, run OS X Leopard, Windows Vista, OR XP at startup. I have a friend who made his Dell laptop run with 5 operating systems. ONe is a Mac. And he can open a mini desktop of a windows computer in a window of the Mac OS, then click full screen and he is running windows (at half of the power, but hey, restart the comp for 100% power, useful for running windows only programs for a short burst of time when needed).

 

[fmw]

Nothing personal, guys, but Linux is very easy to load and use. If you get a distro like Xandros, it all loads itself. You can buy Xandros commercially for $69.95 if you like and if you want commercial support. Or you can have the open distribution version for free without the support. By the way, where does one get commercial support for Windows? It looks and feels a lot like windows but works faster and with much, much, much more stability. The software provided is quite good. There is no virus threat with Linux. Again, you can dual boot the machine and have both it and Windows on the same hard drive. It takes only a reboot to change operating systems. My Linux system never needs rebooting except when we have a power outage. My network has 3 Windows machines and one Linux machine. I use the Linux machine almost exclusively for internet purposes. I don't need to have a dual boot system but it is a good option for single computer users.

I don't understand the fear and dislike about Linux. It has changed a lot since the hobbyist versions of years ago. If you fear having an operating system that can take direct commands, just remind yourself that we all did that with DOS which was not multiuser and not so stable as Linux. If Mac is not off topic then neither is Linux.

 

[shorty6049]

what about program compatablility with linux? are all windows programs compatable?

 

[Peniole]

I have vista on my laptop, annoying learning curve at first, but now I wouldn't go back to XP. The precalibrated to your screen automatic colour profile switching alone is enough.

 

[fmw]

what about program compatablility with linux? are all windows programs compatable?

No, not compatible. What I'm saying is that the Linux equivalents to much of the home use software are not only good but they are free. So you can populate your Linux computer with what you need at no cost. As an example, the commonly used image editor is called Gimp. It has been compiled for Windows as well as Linux so you can check it out on your own Windows computer if you like. The most popular browser is Firefox which is another program that has been compiled for Windows. That is free for you to use as well if you want to try it out on your computer.

I don't think Gimp is as functional and feature laden as the Photoshop CS2 I normally use, but I do use it and find some things about even nicer than Photoshop and it is better than all the consumer type image editors. I could certainly get by with it and be fine. Photoshop is expensive. Gimp is free. I think Firefox is every bit as good Internet Exporer. It is different. Some things are done better in one than the other. But they are certainly comparable.

Most audio and video capabilites of Windows are available on the Linux OS. As an example you can burn dvd's just like you would with windows. I've tried both of the popular desktop environments and I tend to prefer KDE since it is the most like Windows. So I would choose a distro that includes it. Xandros and SuSi both do and both are easy for Windows users.

 

[fmw]

I have vista on my laptop, annoying learning curve at first, but now I wouldn't go back to XP. The precalibrated to your screen automatic colour profile switching alone is enough.

What is enough for me is the end user agreement that lets Microsoft inspect a Vista computer at will and even delete software that they feel is pirated. Pirated or otherwise, I'm not willing to let someone else invade my computer and add or delete software without my knowledge or permission. I'm against software piracy and I don't engage in it. But I am for software privacy and won't have it any other way than private.

 

[Peniole]

What is enough for me is the end user agreement that lets Microsoft inspect a Vista computer at will and even delete software that they feel is pirated. Pirated or otherwise, I'm not willing to let someone else invade my computer and add or delete software without my knowledge or permission. I'm against software piracy and I don't engage in it. But I am for software privacy and won't have it any other way than private.

First I've heard of that, when I first booted up there was a question as to whether microsoft could collect "anonymous information", yeah right, my answer was of course NO. I'm with you on the privacy issue, but since it's a separate question and not lumped in with the license agreement I don't see how they could without serious legal ramifications.

 

[lkWinnipesaukee]

Guys, Linux is easy, if not easier (in the case of Ubuntu) to install and use than any Windows program.

I don't buy anything from that evil company anyways. Do a quick search about the "Halloween Documents"

 

[Qonfused]

If you really want a PC, build it yourself. It really isn't that hard, you make it how you want it, you install what you want, and it's cheaper than buying a pre-built.

If you're not willing to build something yourself, than get a mac.

QFT.

I laugh when people buy computers from corporations. Building your own computer allows you a greater flexibility in choices for your computer. Plus it is a lot cheaper. Example: I built my current computer a year and a half ago for $1600. One of my friends bought, basically, the same computer from Dell about five months ago for the same price, when in fact I could build this same computer for around $900.

 

[newrmdmike]

yup

 

[Corry]

Ok, to answer the OP's actual question (rather than going off on a 'mac vs pc' tangent, like many of you have)

....I have Vista, and the ONLY problem I have had so far is it wasn't compatible with my sound card. So, I need to plunk a whopping $20 down on that. And that's with a computer that is 3+ years old.

I haven't had a problem with any of my photo editing software.

Clarinetjwd can attest to about the same opinion.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Here's a simple solution. You can buy the computer and then download one of the many excellent Linux distributions. Most of them include all the software you need for home computing uses including image editing. The cost is approximately zero. You can even dual boot the machine so that Vista and Linux are in separate partitions. One Linux distro I recommend to Windows users is called Xandros. It behaves quite a bit like Windows with the KDE desktop and makes a pretty easy transition for the Windows user. Another one would be SuSi with the same KDE desktop.

Then you can let Vista reside on the hard drive and ignore it until you need it for some reason. Linux will handle all the day to day computing with more speed, much, much more stability and complete freedom from viruses, trojans and adware. No need for a firewall even though all the distros include one. And best of all is the cost. 4 or 5 CD-R's or DVD-R's will be your total cost. How about tech support? Also free. There are all kinds of forums like this one but for Linux users.

You use linux? lol, you just went up a few notches in my books! :thumbup:

 

[andythebrave]

Can I have Windows 3.11 back please?

Right, I'm off to fetch my abacus, quill pen and blotter.

As a user of W98SE on an Athlon 500 PC with 640k RAM I've sat smugly on the sidelines as colleagues have avidly lapped up W2000 and XP (and derivatives) and now understand that Vista may not be an entirely reliable operating system.

Ok, so XP wasn't a total disaster.

Crikey, anyone would think that the Microsoft philosophy was to sell product before it had finished development so that its users then had to download countless updates before getting fed up and buying the next version which will be released before it's finished development so that its users then had to (you know how it goes from here).

Why does this philosophy exist? Cynics amongst us may think that that a position of almost complete domination of the market enables a supplier to do what it likes which would seem to be banking vast swathes of cash.

Fair enough.

Just don't get me started on why the heck there is even such a thing as an operating system.

There, that feels better.

And now for something completely different

http://www.jetlabs.com/airport/airport.html