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New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)

B

Bernard Peek

Flightless Bird
On 15/03/10 12:59, Mike Barnes wrote:

> My log from that time (2006) is only available from backups and I can't
> be arsed to restore it so my memory will have to do. I remember that the
> Ubuntu equivalents to Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Quicken, Microsoft Office
> (particularly with regard to my macros), iTunes, and Turnpike (my
> mail/news client) were completely unsatisfactory. There were a few dozen
> further applications that I never got round to looking at before I gave
> up.

I don't think that there have been any significant changes to the
situation since 2006. I've reluctantly abandoned Turnpike, Thunderbird
is a barely tolerable substitute. Open Office is acceptable for
word-processing and spreadsheets, but you would have to rewrite your
macros. There still isn't any sensible Linux competitor for MS Access,
which is all I need my Windows machine for now.



--
Bernard Peek
bap@shrdlu.com
 
D

Dave Liquorice

Flightless Bird
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:27:11 +0000, Bernard Peek wrote:

> There still isn't any sensible Linux competitor for MS Access,

Or Publisher, at least not from the Open Office stable. Word can be
kicked into doing some things but it's not quite a nice or as
flexable as Publisher.

--
Cheers
Dave.
 
B

Bernard Peek

Flightless Bird
On 15/03/10 16:29, Dave Liquorice wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:27:11 +0000, Bernard Peek wrote:
>
>> There still isn't any sensible Linux competitor for MS Access,
>
> Or Publisher, at least not from the Open Office stable. Word can be
> kicked into doing some things but it's not quite a nice or as
> flexable as Publisher.
>
For what I need Scribus is fine although I also have Serif's Page Plus.
It's not an OO product. It is available in Windows and Linux versions.

--
Bernard Peek
bap@shrdlu.com
 
R

Roger Mills

Flightless Bird
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Roger Mills
<watt.tyler@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to
> the same software and data files at two different locations, and have
> decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of
> hardware and trying to keep them in synch.
>
etc.


Many thanks for all the helpful replies so far. The general concensus seems
to be that Vista is to be avoided like the plague, and that some features of
newer laptops - desgined for Vista or Win 7 - may not work with XP. So
buying a Win 7 or Vista machine and downgrading to XP may not be a smart
thing to do.

So it looks like needing to bite the bullet, and go with Windows 7. The
32-bit version appears to be the safer bet.

Which leaves all my legacy software . . Someone suggested using the
Professional versions of Win 7 (expensive!) with the option of running XP
inside it. Others have suggesated using Sun VirtualBox, and running XP in
that. That should apparently run ok in the Home Premium version of Win 7
without explicitly requiring the processor to have virtualisation
capabiliities. Have I got that right? I assume that I would need a lot of
RAM and diskspace to be able to run a virtual machine. Presumably something
with 4GB of RAM (the most supported by the 32-bit version) and 500GB of disk
should do? I'm looking at something like:
http://www.dabs.com/products/acer-a...5-6--windows-7-home-premium-6CP1.html#reviews
Any comments?

Incidentally, just for a laugh, I decided to download MS's Windows 7
Compatibility Advisor and run it on my current 7-year-old XP laptop to see
what it made of my peripheral devices and installed applications. However, I
can't get it to tell me anything! It loads and starts running - with its
little green bar scrolling across the screen - and displays words to the
effect of "I may be gone some time". Then, after about 2 minutes, it
abruptly closes - and that's that! No report. I've tried to run it several
times - always with the same result. Anyone know what's happening?
--
Cheers,
Roger
_______
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.
 
B

Bernard Peek

Flightless Bird
On 16/03/10 22:34, Roger Mills wrote:

> Which leaves all my legacy software . . Someone suggested using the
> Professional versions of Win 7 (expensive!) with the option of running XP
> inside it. Others have suggesated using Sun VirtualBox, and running XP in
> that. That should apparently run ok in the Home Premium version of Win 7
> without explicitly requiring the processor to have virtualisation
> capabiliities. Have I got that right? I assume that I would need a lot of
> RAM and diskspace to be able to run a virtual machine. Presumably something
> with 4GB of RAM (the most supported by the 32-bit version) and 500GB of disk
> should do? I'm looking at something like:
> http://www.dabs.com/products/acer-a...5-6--windows-7-home-premium-6CP1.html#reviews
> Any comments?

It doesn't specify but I would expect that machine to come with the
64-bit version of Windows. It will be an OEM license so you won't get
the 32-bit version as well.




--
Bernard Peek
bap@shrdlu.com
 
R

Roger Mills

Flightless Bird
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Bernard Peek
<bap@shrdlu.com> wrote:
> On 16/03/10 22:34, Roger Mills wrote:
>
>> Which leaves all my legacy software . . Someone suggested using the
>> Professional versions of Win 7 (expensive!) with the option of
>> running XP inside it. Others have suggesated using Sun VirtualBox,
>> and running XP in that. That should apparently run ok in the Home
>> Premium version of Win 7 without explicitly requiring the processor
>> to have virtualisation capabiliities. Have I got that right? I
>> assume that I would need a lot of RAM and diskspace to be able to
>> run a virtual machine. Presumably something with 4GB of RAM (the
>> most supported by the 32-bit version) and 500GB of disk should do?
>> I'm looking at something like:
>> http://www.dabs.com/products/acer-a...5-6--windows-7-home-premium-6CP1.html#reviews
>> Any comments?
>
> It doesn't specify but I would expect that machine to come with the
> 64-bit version of Windows. It will be an OEM license so you won't get
> the 32-bit version as well.


Mmm - you could be right! I had assumed it if it was the 64-bit version it
would say so (most do) - but perhaps not. I shall contact Acer to find out.
--
Cheers,
Roger
_______
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.
 
B

Barry Watzman

Flightless Bird
If you feel that a given [old] OS meets your needs, fine, you can say
that. I said it for a long time about Windows 98.

However, there is a STRONG (not universal, but strong) consensus that:

1. Windows XP was far better than Windows 2K or 98
2. Windows 7 is better than XP

And I suspect that the number of people who accept 2. will grow over
time, as the number of people who accepted 1. grew. I no longer use
Windows 98. I did so for a LONG time after XP came out (years), but I
no longer do, except on very old hardware on which there is no choice.
And although, for hardware and software compatibility reasons, I am
currently [still] using XP, I myself accept 2. as valid. And at some
point I will stop using Windows XP.


Gib Bogle wrote:

>
> What was wrong with W2000 (from MS's point of view) was that everybody
> already had it. That wasn't good for sales.
 
T

The Natural Philosopher

Flightless Bird
Barry Watzman wrote:
> If you feel that a given [old] OS meets your needs, fine, you can say
> that. I said it for a long time about Windows 98.
>
> However, there is a STRONG (not universal, but strong) consensus that:
>
> 1. Windows XP was far better than Windows 2K or 98
> 2. Windows 7 is better than XP
>

yes, thats what windows users are tellin me too.

> And I suspect that the number of people who accept 2. will grow over
> time, as the number of people who accepted 1. grew. I no longer use
> Windows 98. I did so for a LONG time after XP came out (years), but I
> no longer do, except on very old hardware on which there is no choice.
> And although, for hardware and software compatibility reasons, I am
> currently [still] using XP, I myself accept 2. as valid. And at some
> point I will stop using Windows XP.
>

same here, except I run it inside a virtual machine, because Windows is
still 15 years behind *nix in terms of general solidity and freedom from
viruses and sheer configurability.

And even its font rendering is still crap. Compared with Linux or Macs.
It just looks UGLY.

really with machine virtualisation, and RAM as cheap as it is, there is
no need to 'choose an OS' - have em all.

If you want MAC OSX, of course you need a Mac, but then with MAC or
Linux you can run windows inside a box, and with a mac, you can run
linux inside a box, too. Though there isn't a deal of point to that.
They are pretty equivalent really.

I cant think of any reason to run windows native on a machine, except
possibly gaming.

If you want plug and play and ease of use, get a mac., If you want dirt
cheap and superb performance tailored to your needs use Linux.

Leave windows for the few applications you need it for, and use the
version that runs those: do everything else on a different OS.

Windows is for people who haven't a clue. Once you have a clue you will
go for a Mac if you have money and don't like computers, and for Linux
if you have no money, and do like computers.

Or FreeBSD if you are slightly weird.



>
> Gib Bogle wrote:
>
>>
>> What was wrong with W2000 (from MS's point of view) was that everybody
>> already had it. That wasn't good for sales.
 
C

Clive George

Flightless Bird
On 17/03/2010 01:06, Barry Watzman wrote:
> If you feel that a given [old] OS meets your needs, fine, you can say
> that. I said it for a long time about Windows 98.
>
> However, there is a STRONG (not universal, but strong) consensus that:
>
> 1. Windows XP was far better than Windows 2K or 98

Windows 98 was the old shit 16 bit windows, and utterly different to
Win2K and XP. Win2K was the next version of NT. XP was when they took NT
into the consumer line. As such XP was far better than 98, but not
necessarily much better than 2K.
 
J

Jules Richardson

Flightless Bird
On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:06:52 -0400, Barry Watzman wrote:

> If you feel that a given [old] OS meets your needs, fine, you can say
> that. I said it for a long time about Windows 98.
>
> However, there is a STRONG (not universal, but strong) consensus that:
>
> 1. Windows XP was far better than Windows 2K or 98

I'm not so sure - I use win2k in a VM when I *have* to have Windows for
something; it seems to be able as stable as Windows ever gets. My
experiences of XP gave me the impression that it's really just win2k with
a bunch of bloat and eye-candy thrown into the pot* - in other words it
doesn't really offer any addtional benefit, and just "looks more pretty".

* not that win2k was exactly a pinnacle of efficiency compared to such as
Linux, either...

cheers

Jules
 
B

Bernard Peek

Flightless Bird
On 17/03/10 12:28, Jules Richardson wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:06:52 -0400, Barry Watzman wrote:
>
>> If you feel that a given [old] OS meets your needs, fine, you can say
>> that. I said it for a long time about Windows 98.
>>
>> However, there is a STRONG (not universal, but strong) consensus that:
>>
>> 1. Windows XP was far better than Windows 2K or 98
>
> I'm not so sure - I use win2k in a VM when I *have* to have Windows for
> something; it seems to be able as stable as Windows ever gets. My
> experiences of XP gave me the impression that it's really just win2k with
> a bunch of bloat and eye-candy thrown into the pot* - in other words it
> doesn't really offer any addtional benefit, and just "looks more pretty".
>

XP with SP2 is significantly more secure than any version of W2K. If
your VM is connecting to the Internet I would recommend upgrading.


--
Bernard Peek
bap@shrdlu.com
 
J

Jules Richardson

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:25:06 +0000, Bernard Peek wrote:
>> I'm not so sure - I use win2k in a VM when I *have* to have Windows for
>> something; it seems to be able as stable as Windows ever gets. My
>> experiences of XP gave me the impression that it's really just win2k
>> with a bunch of bloat and eye-candy thrown into the pot* - in other
>> words it doesn't really offer any addtional benefit, and just "looks
>> more pretty".
>>
>>
> XP with SP2 is significantly more secure than any version of W2K. If
> your VM is connecting to the Internet I would recommend upgrading.

No, it's not - no way would I use any MS product with a direct 'net
connection. :)
 
A

Andy Champ

Flightless Bird
Barry Watzman wrote:
> If you feel that a given [old] OS meets your needs, fine, you can say
> that. I said it for a long time about Windows 98.
>
> However, there is a STRONG (not universal, but strong) consensus that:
>
> 1. Windows XP was far better than Windows 2K or 98
> 2. Windows 7 is better than XP
>


Mmm.... not sure...

Win 3.x was bad, and '95 was based on it. And on MS-DOS, under the
hood. 95 was developed into '98, which was.... OK, for a crude,
unprotected, not properly multi-tasking OS. ME was a pile of ****.

The other side of the tree - Windows NT was solid as anything, and got
better from 3.1 to 3.5 to 3.51. Then Win2000 put the '9x-family GUI on
the top, and wrecked the stability. XP took a lot of the bugs out, and
isn't too bad. Vista was all bells and whistles, and trying to protect
you, and I find just gets in my way. Not too badly, and to be fair it's
_way_ better that 2000, never mind ME. Though bear in mind I'm running
it on a machine with two quad-core Xeons and 8gigs, so it ought to feel
OK. But I've seen no real reason to go with Vista - it's just what the
box came with.

Win7 I've only tried on a laptop. It feels pretty good - less of the
silly prompt stuff than Vista, and seems to work better than XP.
Certainly the wireless behaves better.

I've only really messed with Linux on the kind of marginal hardware that
doesn't really run Windoze well. Ubuntu usually. And it doesn't run
any better.

Andy
 
B

Bernard Peek

Flightless Bird
On 17/03/10 21:06, Andy Champ wrote:

> I've only really messed with Linux on the kind of marginal hardware that
> doesn't really run Windoze well. Ubuntu usually. And it doesn't run any
> better.

The default window manager in Ubuntu is Gnome. It's as much of a
resource hog as its Windows equivalent. With Linux you do have the
option of switching to a lightweight window manager which will run
faster. If all you want to do is a little web browsing and
word-processing that would be quite good enough. Linux is capable of
doing useful work with limited hardware, but you do need to tweak the
configuration.


--
Bernard Peek
bap@shrdlu.com
 
C

Clive George

Flightless Bird
On 17/03/2010 21:06, Andy Champ wrote:

> Win 3.x was bad, and '95 was based on it. And on MS-DOS, under the hood.
> 95 was developed into '98, which was.... OK, for a crude, unprotected,
> not properly multi-tasking OS. ME was a pile of ****.
>
> The other side of the tree - Windows NT was solid as anything, and got
> better from 3.1 to 3.5 to 3.51. Then Win2000 put the '9x-family GUI on
> the top, and wrecked the stability.

You forgot NT4, which is where the 9x GUI came in.

We've got several Win2K servers which are having to be replaced now
because of removal of support in about June - they've just sat there
working fine for years.
 
T

tony sayer

Flightless Bird
>
>Windows 98 was the old shit 16 bit windows, and utterly different to
>Win2K and XP. Win2K was the next version of NT. XP was when they took NT
>into the consumer line. As such XP was far better than 98, but not
>necessarily much better than 2K.

About right that..


Remember ME;?..

Then there was Vista;(((((((( ..............
--
Tony Sayer
 
J

Jules Richardson

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:06:33 +0000, Andy Champ wrote:
> I've only really messed with Linux on the kind of marginal hardware that
> doesn't really run Windoze well. Ubuntu usually. And it doesn't run
> any better.

I tried ubuntu briefly, but really didn't like it - far too bloated. I
went back to slackware (which is what I've typically run for as long as
it's existed), but unfortunately the latest incarnation of KDE that comes
with v13 seems to drag it down just as much as Gnome was doing on
ubuntu...

"progress" I think they call it...

cheers

Jules
 
T

The Natural Philosopher

Flightless Bird
Andy Champ wrote:
> Barry Watzman wrote:
>> If you feel that a given [old] OS meets your needs, fine, you can say
>> that. I said it for a long time about Windows 98.
>>
>> However, there is a STRONG (not universal, but strong) consensus that:
>>
>> 1. Windows XP was far better than Windows 2K or 98
>> 2. Windows 7 is better than XP
>>
>
>
> Mmm.... not sure...
>
> Win 3.x was bad, and '95 was based on it. And on MS-DOS, under the
> hood. 95 was developed into '98, which was.... OK, for a crude,
> unprotected, not properly multi-tasking OS. ME was a pile of ****.
>
> The other side of the tree - Windows NT was solid as anything,

No, it was about 10% as solid as Unix, but 5 times solider than 98..


and got
> better from 3.1 to 3.5 to 3.51. Then Win2000 put the '9x-family GUI on
> the top, and wrecked the stability. XP took a lot of the bugs out, and
> isn't too bad. Vista was all bells and whistles, and trying to protect
> you, and I find just gets in my way. Not too badly, and to be fair it's
> _way_ better that 2000, never mind ME. Though bear in mind I'm running
> it on a machine with two quad-core Xeons and 8gigs, so it ought to feel
> OK. But I've seen no real reason to go with Vista - it's just what the
> box came with.
>
> Win7 I've only tried on a laptop. It feels pretty good - less of the
> silly prompt stuff than Vista, and seems to work better than XP.
> Certainly the wireless behaves better.
>
> I've only really messed with Linux on the kind of marginal hardware that
> doesn't really run Windoze well. Ubuntu usually. And it doesn't run
> any better.
>

Doesn't run any better?

Christ how on earth do you manage to make it crash every day?

The LONGEST I have had windows running is about 2 days. My Linux is
dictated generally by the time between kernel upgrades, or a power cut,
whichever is the sooner. That's the only time it ever gets rebooted.
Unless I mess up its config and screw it beyond immediate redemption.

And it has never messed up so bad it needed reinstallation, except with
definite terminal hardware problems.

Rssntalling windows is a two monthly exercise for most of my friends who
use it as a desktop.




> Andy
 
T

The Natural Philosopher

Flightless Bird
Bernard Peek wrote:
> On 17/03/10 21:06, Andy Champ wrote:
>
>> I've only really messed with Linux on the kind of marginal hardware that
>> doesn't really run Windoze well. Ubuntu usually. And it doesn't run any
>> better.
>
> The default window manager in Ubuntu is Gnome. It's as much of a
> resource hog as its Windows equivalent.

I woouldn;t know about that. BUT running the two on the same
machione,simultaneously, the windows uses about 5 times the CPU to do
the same thing, according to the monitor.

Neither use excessive RAM. And its cheap enough.


> With Linux you do have the
> option of switching to a lightweight window manager which will run
> faster.

Window managers don't actually do very much more than manage windows..I
cant really see what speed has to do with it.

I want speed in the programs. I dont give a shit about how fast the
windows move.

If all you want to do is a little web browsing and
> word-processing that would be quite good enough. Linux is capable of
> doing useful work with limited hardware, but you do need to tweak the
> configuration.
>

Normally, you dont.

Its faster stabler and better looking out of the box than windows.

The only downside is that windows programs and some peripherals don't
run on it. Otherwise apart from being less plug'n'play its better in
every respect.


>
 
T

The Natural Philosopher

Flightless Bird
tony sayer wrote:
>> Windows 98 was the old shit 16 bit windows, and utterly different to
>> Win2K and XP. Win2K was the next version of NT. XP was when they took NT
>> into the consumer line. As such XP was far better than 98, but not
>> necessarily much better than 2K.
>
> About right that..
>
>
> Remember ME;?..
>

Thats Yuppie flu innit?
> Then there was Vista;(((((((( ..............
 
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