New PC.. Which OS?

[Drikel]

Originally Posted by Devicus

Vista will work fine before you learn Linux. Personally I'm not into SM. If you're patient linux is a good OS.

I'd reccomend XP. My housemate ran 98 till last year, no issues. If you're only keeping a system for 2 years, it'll work fine. for $400-500 you WILL NOT get a futureproof gaming system that runs cutting edge games tommorow and you won't get a smooth running vista boot. It will buy you a respectable though not awesome XP machine and so... I'd say "hold off on vista all together" OR "spend more on something worthwhile to run vista on and keep it for longer". 64 bit is nice, but at $400 his PC might not have a 64 bit processor after a gig or 2 (I got 2 gig of named brand ddr667 for £60, a steal sadly) of ram and a dedicated graphics card (another $100 for a half decent one) (or the equivalent budgeting in a premade)

My PC is not $400 its just the OS I was talking about... Total price for my PC is gonna be around the $1500-$2000 mark. The processor will be a dual core 64 bit Intel chip (because thats the mobo I picked up)... at least. I have not gotten that far yet, at the moment I have a Tower and a Main Board. Next will be a hard drive and video-card (maybe duel). My last purchases will be OS and Processor. Finished off with RAM.

From what most have posted here, it seems a 64 bit XP might be the way to go... and on my spare rig, I'll give Linux a run.. I have always watched it from the side-lines, with never a rig to actually try it. With my new rig up and running I'll defiantly play with it on the old.

Thanks guys.

[sparks]

I would vote against 64 bit xp....there are a LOT of driver issues and things with it. Unless you are a BIG number cruncher 32 is fine. Like the ads say vista 64 fixes the problems (YEA SURE) vista is a damn joke, it is free licenses for ms to put in drm from everyone and a few other bs things.
if you install it, get the stripped down version posted on the web....removed about 60% of all the crap.

vista is XP me.... hope you know what I am talking about there.

HEY want to know why vista is slower in games than XP, they moved stuff and then in DX10 they told all the video developers that THEY would handle the deletes. WELL THEY NEVER DID IT. great work microcrap.

just get xp home for $30-$50 on sale ..wait for the vista bloatware to get patched 2000 times till it might work, get the anti bloatware to install next year.

[mavric240]

Originally Posted by Majestrix

and if your half way competent

I don't recall ever claiming to be "half way competent"!


The 13 main problems with Vista



In this age of mobile handsets, burgeoning online content, gaming consoles, iPods, it comes as no surprise that Microsoft will spend $ 500 million to market Vista.

It is currently running ads for Hotmail in India promising 1 Gb of space! Very much in the tradition of England on the eve of 19th Century and you.S. around 2000, an entity about to begin a painful and slow fall from the top, Microsoft can do as it pleases with its hoard of cash. You didn’t see Google doing that when it launched Gmail.

In words of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft will spend all money telling people that ‘buying Vista is a potentially life-changing event’.

Buying Vista is indeed life changing.
When you buy Vista, you are giving up your power over the software and hardware, you paid big bucks.

The problems with Vista will come out to the fore when it gets in hands of large number of buyers. The mainstream media has so far focused on the Bill gates personality cult rather than the negative things with Vista, other than Walter Mossberg’s ‘I am not impressed’ review.

The difference between Online and mainstream media is an old one: MSM often writes puff pieces around technology issues while there is a wealth of information online which needs to be read by actual users and the general populace.


The main problems with Vista so far:

Problems Part 1

1. Costlier than the $100 Laptop and Gaming consoles: Vista Home Premium is $239, $159 upgrade; Vista Ultimate costs $399, $259 upgrade.

2. No instant plug and play: upgrading and setting up Vista will take much of your time.

3. Expensive for normal use: Vista is probably not for you if you use the PC for normal jobs like surfing and typing. Use Mozillla Firefox for same and better functionalities than Explorer 7. Microsoft may however try to convince you otherwise showing how cool Vista looks. If you are into looks, get a skin for your desktop.

4. Too expensive for Gaming: If you are into Gaming, for the price of a Vista, get a Gaming Console.

5. No big Vista application announcements: IBM, Intuit, large software vendors and even Microsoft’s own Dynamics ERP division have so far been quiet about their software for Vista.

6. Online software providers such as Salesforce.com do not plan to modify their offerings to suit the new Explorer

Now, we come to the actual problem with Vista.
After the lukewarm response to DRM initiatives by big companies, I am positive users will not like Vista’s draconian features that threaten to take the power away from them. Vista is actually worse than DRM.

To users, Microsoft says that it wants to protect them from computer viruses. To content owners (especially big media corporations), Microsoft says it will protect copyright. Actually, Microsoft ends up on the Big Media’s side, virtually controlling how users use and control their machines.


Problems Part 2

Highlights from the Vista user agreement, which comes into force once you choose accept and install the software.

7. This agreement only gives users only a few rights to use the software. All other rights belong to Microsoft.

8. If you do not like Vista's limitations, Microsoft says in the agreement that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software."

9. Microsoft has the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software (which you paid for) and CAN DELETE certain programs without your knowledge.

10. Microsoft can revalidate the software anytime or it may require you to reactivate it if you make changes to ‘your’ computer components.

11. Microsoft has set significant limits on users’ ability to copy or transfer the software. It prohibits anything more than a single backup copy and has set strict limits on transferring the software to different devices or users.

12. Only Windows Defender, the much-hyped anti-virus program –will determine what constitutes unwanted software. That means Microsoft can install Spyware and Adware with impunity.

13. Vista Content protection only helps Big Media: A computer scientist in New Zealand found that Vista intentionally degrades the picture quality of premium content when played on most computer monitors. Microsoft wants you to see that content on TV or bigger, pricier displays.


Options for existing PC (not using MAC OS, Linux) users

- Continue using Win XP
- For gaming, you are better off with the consoles
- Use online office application from Google which are getting better by the day, including better integration with other online apps, in a seamless experience.
- OpenOffice is getting better by the day.
- Home Entertainment: Steve Ballmer says Vista as the center and the launching point for the next generation of connected entertainment in the home. Translation: Expensive Home Servers, premium content, all controlled by Vista’s draconian features.

The world’s needs an open source home entertainment server along the lines of Openoffice, if that is our entertainment future.


End notes
Despite having come up with a Big Brother type of software, Microsoft is sitting pretty. Microsoft knows that for Vista, it at least has the lucrative (&captive) OEM and Corporate market (which still has to show faith in online office applications).

If this is not enough follow this link and read some more from Chris Pirllio

http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/28/...ista-mistakes/

[Drikel]

Wow Mav, thanks for that.

First thing I did was download OpenOffice, All I had was note pad and word pad... This is great.
And what an eye opener on Vista. I had "heard" about the limitations MS put on Vista, but to actually limit how I can piece together my "own" PC, is kinda nuts.

Guess when it comes to XP... if it ain't broke (lol "ain't broke"... you know what I mean) don't fix it.
Honestly I liked how Vista "looked", but I have sense been playing with Crystal XP and Windows Blinds and Icon Packager, and like what I can do with them. So I guess there really is no reason to get Vista.

Hell, would it even be so wrong to get a Mac?

[Rigo]

Used Vista on my new laptop with wow. One crash in like 4 months.

Lots of crashes in XP prior to that...

2gb is essential tho

[mavric240]

Originally Posted by Drikel

Hell, would it even be so wrong to get a Mac?

If you can get past the "bubble gum packaging" that Apple uses they seem to be pretty good machines. I know several people who use them and love them. I just can't get past the "look" of the rig to try it out, But they are getting better as I just looked at Apple's online store. Be preparred to open up your wallet if you want an apple, the MacPro with a decent setup runs about $2700 - (2g, 160g HD, Nivida 256M, 2.4ghz duel core)

[enganador]

I play WoW on a Mac Mini (G4) OSX 10.4 with 1GB and I have no problems at all running WoW IF you don't have 1000 other applications running at the same time.

I've worked with Windows since 3.1 until XP, with Unix, with all kind of Linux OS's and I have to say that OS X is the best of them all.

I had my Mini for 1.5 year and it has been running 24/7 since then and I haven't had any problems at all, it just works and it's really LOW maintenance! And since time is the most valuable thing I have except for my wife and son, so it's priceless!

So I would highly recommend switching to Mac and you will never look back!

/Engandor

[Kerowyn]

Can't stand macs myself. They are as draconian about hardware as microsoft is about software. That's why their machines cost more and perform less then PC hardware. As opposed to an open hardware standard where any vendor can release compatible hardware, Apple squelches competition and the progress that goes with it. As a consequence, you pay more for less.

Once you go opensource, you never go back.

[slarth]

I have XP Pro and Vista Ultimate running on various machines. My gaming machine is running XP Pro. Vista runs fine and runs WoW well enough but with the cost and extra overhead of the OS its not worth it. I wouldn't bother with 64 bit XP either. Driver and other compatibility issues make it not worth the trouble. WoW will not benefit from a 64 bit OS and as I recall it does not make use of SLI.

[enganador]

Originally Posted by Kerowyn

Can't stand macs myself. They are as draconian about hardware as microsoft is about software. That's why their machines cost more and perform less then PC hardware. As opposed to an open hardware standard where any vendor can release compatible hardware, Apple squelches competition and the progress that goes with it. As a consequence, you pay more for less.

Once you go opensource, you never go back.

You can run many Linux distros (e.g. Ubuntu) on a Apple machine
Since you don't have any problems with a Apple machine + OSX you actually save money since - time is money

Apple is for people who wants use their computer as a tool and not fiddle around with...