Will you buy Vista ?

[Shabbaman]

quote:Originally posted by romeothemonk

3) It has all the functionality that I need.

But doesn't XP have all the functionality you need? Aren't you just upgrading because everybody else is, thus rendering your old OS less functional?

So, you're finally setting up that spam factory, yes?

[Socrates]

quote:Originally posted by romeothemonk

3) It has all the functionality that I need.

But you also need WinFS, and WinFS was postponed for the next Windows version ! You'll end up with a version that hasn't met all its promises, but you will pay the same for that. I concur with Shabba's post.

quote:4) It allows me to focus on my core competancy which is not computer related.

I agree for not wasting time with computers. But you have to realise that pretty soon Windows will be more of a headache than other systems like GNU/Linux, especially in the business world.

[Beam]

quote:Originally posted by akots

Well, this is not exactly true. There are a number of products for corporate use which do require Win XP. I get through a number of issues constantly with Mac people here at work and they just cannot do a lot of stuff they were supposed to be able to do. Same goes to most types of Linux. Serious software manufacturers indeed are almost exclusive using Windoze as a platform.

Another issue is a communication and networking problems. To meet the security requirements here at work, people are essentially forced to use XP Pro. Otherwise, there are too many access problems and while an occasional Unix machine can be brought into a required shape by a skilled programmer within a few weeks, most of the stuff still cannot be fixed mostly because of mismatched hardware, communications with that harware and network administrator access rights.

For example, we had a number of pieces of analytical equipment which were forced to be brought off-line (unpluged from network). This made data transfer from these machine a nightmare (I've used an ancient 800 Mb tape drive for that and it takes about 5 hours to write on a tape and same time to read from it). So, we ended up hiring a contractor who wrote a protection driver which then had to be certified through another company. Now we cannot still acess the network but at least have an Internet access and can transfer files through university ftp server. All had cost us something around $12,000 and this is a lot of money. We get Win XP Pro at about $25 per copy (with bulk license and non-profit discount), so for 12,000 one can buy almost 500 copies of XP Pro.

Now, there is a new state policy which actually prohibits purchase of any non-Windoze-non-Mac machine even for specific research purposes and we are not any longer allowed to secure a small unix partitition on a hard drive like we were used to.

akots, this doen't change a thing about the statement you are replying to except it is indeed not just games that run not as good (or not at all) on Linux. Most distro's come with what ppl generally use a computer for or are easily obtainable for free most cases. Linux has a learning curve but I agree with Matrix that if money spent on Win licenses instead was spent on Linux development that learning curve could become much less.

Also imo if you have a stable XP and / or it is mandatory why change to Vista?

[Melifluous]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov

But you have to realise that pretty soon Windows will be more of a headache than other systems like GNU/Linux, especially in the business world.

OK explain this please...

How the hell can an operating system that everyone knows how to use end up being a headache in the Business World? You can't just make sweeping statements like this with nothing to back it up.

[Melifluous]

quote:Originally posted by Beam


Also imo if you have a stable XP and / or it is mandatory why change to Vista?

Also imo if you have a stable XP and / or it is mandatory why change to Linux?

[Beam]

quote:Originally posted by Melifluous

Also imo if you have a stable XP and / or it is mandatory why change to Linux?

I could write a long story about all Linux virtues but if XP starts reporting I/O errors and destroying HD files, support.microsoft.com blames this malfunction to HW and / or network (les autres) and a Linux distro saves all data and the day you got a pretty good reason.

[Melifluous]

And I could write a long business related story about how awesome MSoft products are and how much grief we've had from trying to implement Linux distro's.

I think it can be boiled down to this.

Computers Suck Sometimes.

[Beam]

I could too but I must say for example Ubuntu is coming close to an implementable distro but still far from mainstream considering the command line / editing config files is needed to do stuff like screen refresh frequency, installation of new HD / partition etc.

[socralynnek]

Command line and editing config files is something I miss in Windows... But ok, i am not a newbie with software so for me that is easier.

But with kubuntu many things are configurable via display too.

I think it's good that there are alternatives. I don't think that Linux will completely drive away Windows, but I also don't think the opposite.

So hopefully both will drive each other to become better...

[Melifluous]

It's funny really my argument, cos at work although I love my PC and everything on it, ALL my development work on programming code was done on a Sco UnixWare server (now a SuSe Linux SLES 9.0 server) using vi as my editor of choice.

I've done more work with crontabs, hosts file, nfs access files, xinetd.d files and general printer and user setup than I've ever done on a PC.

I would rather use a DOS box or a run-line command from windows to start anything. And yet I still disagree with bastards knocking Microsoft for making some money.