Vista suffers a dose of Linuxitis
Linuxitis – 1. [noun] – an affliction of the Operating System, whose only symptom is that the OS has problems in being accepted by the masses. This symptom, in turn, is caused by insufficient support from the developer community, especially the entertainment sector 2. linuxite [adj.] – not being hip enough, applicable to an OS. Etymology: the word has its roots in Linux’ long hard road towards popularity, but in the very recent history Linux started to overcome this affliction.
ENOUGH with the daft dictionary definitions, what happens with Windows Vista is all too real for that. The beleaguered OS has been around for almost two years now, and it still doesn’t even have half the momentum it’s elder brother, XP, had after a much shorter period.
When Vista RTM first hit our desks on that fateful 2007 day, not only did we expose it for the piece of DRM ridden junk that it was, but also forecast a dark and gloomy future for it. And on that particular occasion, we were right, because after so much time - and time is the ultimate proof - the Broken OS is becoming something of an example of how things should not be done, a synonym for failure in IT slang.
The hand from above
Like the family’s special child, Vista always benefited from mum and dad’s
utmost attention. Granted, it’s also the youngest sibling, although it is
undoubtedly the fattest of the lot. Since the first few months, after realising
what a commercial catastrophe was baking in the oven, Mighty-Soft invested tons
of dosh in all sorts of publicity stunts to breathe some life into the mentally
challenged product.
As time passed and Baldmer & Co. got it through their heads that silly contests and promotions won’t help them, they upped the ante. So, in the past few weeks we were treated with such marvellous projects as Mojave, which could be used as a degree paper on dirty manipulation, considering that what was shown during the Vole’s experiment was not the truth about Vista, but a biased, rehearsed and heavily-tweaked reality.
Last but not least, here comes Jerry Seinfeld to save the day. The fight promoter participated in a recent commercial featuring good ol’ Billy trying to be funny and, of course, miserably failing. That one effectively convinced us that Microsoft’s touch can turn a funny bloke into a boring suit.
This entire ruckus, combined with removing XP from shop shelves, succeeded in bringing a few market percentages to the embattled OS’s scoreboard. Ah, yes, all this probably cost Microsoft twice as much as it would have cost the firm to delay the launch of the OS half a year, do some more work at it, just like the entire bloody Earth+Dog suggested after the first Beta releases, and try to come out with a product that wouldn’t have been so easily categorized as fertilizer from its first few post-release months.
The fiasco also helped their competition to win a few people over, mostly XP refugees. It comes as no wonder that the Linux and Mac camps have seen significant popularity increases as of late.
Don’t underestimate the power of gaming though, as the majority of new PC titles are delivered with Direct X 10 support. People start flocking to Vista aplenty, at least from that sector. The previous version of the graphical API is still supported in all game releases though, as studios everywhere won’t ignore the enduring popularity of the venerable XP. Even so, review web sites started to accept the reality that Vista is here to stay and that we have to wait at least one more year until we can see the next significant step forward from Microsoft. Or will it be another step backward?
Switching places
Linux however, is on the rise. The enduring community made up of passionate
fans is set for better days and lots of sunshine. You don’t have to thank only
the Volish Empire for that, but also Linux’ own developments: better and more
consistent distros, usability improvements across the board and so on. A growing
number of companies is showing increased interest in this market. Perhaps,
finally, Linux has overcome that annoying deadlock where people wouldn’t use it
because of a lack of support from major companies and, at the same time, major
companies didn’t show any significant interest due to the weak popularity of the
OS. Maybe Microsoft’s mistakes gave Linux a much deserved push into the
limelight, a push which helped set things in motion.
For Windows, it’s the other way around. We’ve met plenty of developers who simply don’t care to update their products for Vista or don’t even want to code on it. You might say they’re stuck in the past, but that would be ignoring the fact that Vista is just not good enough to attract people. Okay, so we got some eye candy and a few new features, most of them being annoying rather than helpful, does this mean evolution? Does this mean that users of XP have to give up an OS which meets all their requirements for a bloated piece of software chock full of all sorts of restrictive policies which are there, “for your own good”? Of course, the answer is no.
Even more, XP offers almost everything that Vista has and does so in a more elegant and resource-wise fashion. And, since we’re living in an ever-more energy conscious society, why not add that XP is the greener of the two, fewer resources occupied means less energy consumption. And besides, XP has the eco colour, right in the Olive Green theme, not Vista’s Aero with its Black colour, hint, hint.
Sure enough, on paper, the latest Windows was looking better than it really turned out to be. This was back in the day when its creators promised to include all those file system improvements and other fancy things. In the end though, they just made sure the DRM is there, priority Number One since they obviously target some cheques from Hollywood, then they stuffed the turkey with many unnecessary trinkets, before waking up one morning with the release date looming at the horizon. Of course, like any company governed by the marketing department, they gave up on a lot of features, features that would have earned them supporters, only to release the damned thing.
What to do?
For us, nothing, of course, because this period is just what the doctor ordered.
It should even the score a little bit between the multi-billionaire monopolistic
hog and the predominantly open source underdog. For Microsoft, there is plenty
to do. If the company doesn’t want to see happening to Windows what happened to
Internet Explorer, it should get its act together. The competition from the
collaborationist open source scene is getting fiercer by the minute, especially
since more and more big names are distancing themselves from Microsoft’s latest
concoction, or preparing escape routes for the future.
Linux must shine
Like AMD took advantage of Intel’s mistakes a few years ago, Linux must now grab
market share, iron out its imperfections and shine. Now is the perfect time to
grow, become popular and convince people that there are great alternatives to
Microsoft’s products. By all accounts, the company, in its arrogance, won’t even
care that much about what happened with Windows hasta la Vista and the
associated reasons, and will continue being a slave of the dying entertainment
distribution companies, because that’s where the money is. It’s the way all
these big corporations act when cornered. So even if the fat and cumbersome
kernel of Windows gets unclogged, we’ll probably never get rid of the Digital
Repression Management malware which was merrily introduced in Vista under the
guise of righteous justice.
Windows still holds several wildcards, and will continue to do so for a great many years. However, the embargo is breaking up, slowly but surely. Not only due to Linux’ own advances, but also helped by Volish mistakes and that fantastic need of ours, the need for freedom of choice. µ
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Your perspective is something that MS needs. They need to learn how to put on the glasses of its users to see what we see, and to feel the pain. This makes me wonder.... do MS developers use XP or Vista(AKA Windows ME II)?
average people wont just start using linux...

Heck, they certainly don't even know an alternative exist, and even if it did, they wouldn't bother. The majority is dont have much IT knowledge and don't want to!

They know vista suck cause it's a pain on older/cheap machine which is... what they got. mac will still come as a better alternative any time.
The thrust of the article is on the money, barring the assertion regarding the proliferation of DX10 support in games. It's not a huge number- developers who aren't getting MS marketing money rarely regard it as a good return on investment. Also, where DX10 support is present, it's rarely too impressive. Crysis is a good counter-example, if you have a beasting rig, but it's not worth putting up with Vista for one mediocre/buggy shooter with a gorgeous engine.

Anyhow, most of it makes sense. My gaming box runs XP, and does the job. The rest of my machines- servers, video crunching boxes (running custom-developed code) and even laptops etc are happy with linux installs. There's always the *BSD option for when you're feeling a little more 'core, too- but this probably isn't for Joe Public. Personally, I'd be quite happy to suggest a relative go with Umbongo and Open Office, as it reduces the support overhead I suffer due to malware and winrot too.

Linux is absolutely the worst choice for the commodity desktop, apart from all the others (apologies to Mr. Churchill).
XP Pro tomorrow, you would have to put a gun to my head to make me install Vista.

I give up. I want look forward to reading the Inq. I like the double entendres mixed in with my technology news. I honestly can't stomach another Vista article with the phrase "DRM infested" anywhere in the copy. It is like someone copy-pasting Charlie's articles and changing the date. This is not informative or entertaining.

The Inq is off my "must read" daily list. I am sorry, but I don't want to be lumped in with a bunch of Linux-crazed social misfits who think that their come-uppance is pending.

Where have you gone, Mike Magee?
Your article was nothing more that a steaming pile of dog poop. Vista's problem is that there really is no compelling reason to switch from XP to Vista. XP, while a pile of crap, is just good enough to suit the computing needs of Joe Six-pack. Developers for the windows world are shiftless and lazy. Couple that with MSFT inherent greed, ie the new pricing structure and DRM implementation, and you have a recipe for disaster. While there was a definte reason (stability, security, etc) to upgrade from Windows 95/98/M to XP, why am I going to spend $300USD plus on upgrading the O/S on my machine, when XP just does the job fine. Many people have come to the realization that, software is a tool not a fashion statement. Why spend money and time to fix a non-existent problem? Leave it alone and all is find and good.
As a small system builder I have put together several hundreds of pcs with Vista and have had nothing put happy customers. I use it and think quite highly of it as well. 

Is there a list of Vista issues, or is it still so fashionable to bash this OS? I laugh at those that put a 7 year old OS on a Quad core with 4 gigs. Wake up, as those that actually try to be good techs with Vista find most blogger complaints seem to be as valuable as the paper they are written on.
This developer uses WindowsXP..................running in a virtual machine on Linux. That way, when I come up with yet ANOTHER colorful way to crash Windows, I just have to reboot my VM, and not the whole bloody machine.
Sorry to judge "books by their covers" but looking at those people who were commenting on Vista in the "Mojave" commercial, it doesn't seem that Microsoft could have found more clueless people to comment on the workings of an OS than if they had found a lost tribe in the Congo and asked their opinions about all the pretty visuals.

Also, while Linux is making great inroads and progress, there is no bigger deterrent to it's widespread adoption than it's troublesome installation routines. When a single package can be downloaded from any site and installed using a "universal" installer that is part of the OS then it's adoption and acceptance will explode. Until then, most people will just consider it an elitist's OS waiting to suck up their precious time. After that, add some focus to it for use as a gaming platform and MS crumbles under it's own greed and failures that has thus far been prevented by being the defacto standard for PC's.
The number of my computers that have Linux is growing.
Learning a "new" os is easier than learning to tweak a new ms bs os.
MS developers probably use Windows 7...
I too hope that Linux gains more traction among the mainstream community. The more marketshare MS loses, the more effort they'll put in their next release. Let's hope Windows 7 does for the OS market what Conroe did for desktop CPUs.

Oh, and cue the influx of "I love Vista and I've had no problems with it so far" morons, who after nearly 2 years, still don't get it: the burden of reasoning is on MS, not on the millions of XP users who are perfectly happy with their OS.
I use Vista for developing and don't understand why someone computer aware person would not, cause it makes just everything work better. Believe me i and all like me, having a lot to do with computers at work get very nervouse, when i see XP. It is just so slow, oldish and god just makes me go mad realy, There is no going back from Vista to XP for someone like me. There are features and mayn of them i just can' t live without anymore...
you mentioned gamers need vista for dx10, isnt it time developers got together nad made their own graphics glue? what's the matter with opengl? so i can use linux...
Wow - Linux might even manage 1% market share! Oh my goodness Oh my goodness 1% !!!!! 
30 million computers out of about 3 billion - MS must be wetting themselves!
LOL :D

There is little in Vista that gives a compelling reason to buy it, there in lies its problem.
It came pre installed on my PC last year. 
It has crashed less on me than XP, though it has not been as reliable as Win 2k was. (i moved from Win 2k when applications were being written excluding Win2k support.)

DRM has not been noticable. I can rip DVD and CD to my hard disk. Blu Ray i have not tried to RIP. I have huge problems with Blu Ray. I object to the idea of paying Sony a "Blu Ray" tax.

Vista has NOT been a bad OS for me. dual core athlon, not massively fast, 4 gig ram, 1950pro.

I can count on one hand the number of crashes I have had, 2 of them were overclockng my graphics too far.

I am not a fanboi. It has just... worked. SP1 fixed the "quirks". 

Linux MUST.. simplify installation and simplify/standardise the installation of applications. Basically make it so your mum could use it. 

My mum can use Vista....
You deliver propaganda touting benefits without proof and people just accept the claims without doing the research, either because of lack of ability or lack of time.

To my mind Linux is now a far superior choice to MS' offering, as long as the resources are in place to make the switch. And assuming of course, it's possible to escape the app/file type lock-in. 

I'm hopeful that when KDE 4 stabilizes and becomes as feature rich as KDE 3.5 movement to Linux will start en mass.
did the author even use linux?! putting a linux laptop to sleep involves a full shutdown/reboot cycle, controlled by some silly scripts. and it's 2008, ext3 still can't defragment itself. if that isn't crappy engineering, i don't know what crappy engineering is.

say what you will about vista, but stop whoring for linux.
Yep, it´s probably as evil as M$, but a duopoly is much better for the consumer than a monopoly. Graphic card market can tell you that...
It might use Linux as base, but it really needs to be user friendly. Apple can do it without breaking M$ dubious patents... Linux has plenty of engineering geniuses, but has no good designers!
"In the end though, they just made sure the DRM is there." 

That may say it all about MS's reasons for ever birthing this bloated monstrosity. Their biggest goal may have been self-protection - to reduce the number of ripped off copies and provide a way to track illicit software. Not to mention the necessity of every few years milking the presumed cash cow from regular upgraders. 

In other words, Vista was brought out to meet MS's needs, not necessarily the needs of MS's customers.

Just think if the money spent on all the advertising spin had been put instead into fixing the OS. But, no, that would be publicly acknowledging failure. Much better to polish the public image of a rotten apple.
Can't speak for everyone, of course, but I develop all my Windows software on Windows Server 2003 running inside VMWare on Ubuntu 8.04.

I keep Windows safely sandboxed from most malware, and use Ubuntu for all my Email and web browsing needs. 

I used Vista for about a month and a half before I got rid of it. Vista, as far as I'm concerned, is a slow, ugly pig (with or without the ugly lipstick of Aero).
For all you vista lovers out there. I totally understand where you are coming from, but the point is not that vista is good and fine once you use it, but that the price is so high for so little "real" change. If you have two hookers, one which is not quite as pretty (and therefore costs less) but provides great sex because she is more experienced (maybe even with you), and another hooker that is super hot but that you have never met and might have aids and forces you to wear a condom and costs more, which would you choose? Sure on the balance once you take the plunge the super hot hooker may rock, but then again if you messed up with the condom you might well get aids. This is why people would rather stick with XP. And if the media has told you that the other hooker has aids... well.... I think we know what happens.

Me, I prefer my trusty companion linux, despite the 48 hours it took me to coax it in to performing ;).
A couple of weeks ago I purchased a new Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E/H laptop. I couldn't find one with Linux preloaded that had the features that I wanted, so mine came with VISTA Home Premium preloaded.

Had I not had 40 years of programming / computer experience, setting up VISTA without making it a home for viruses and Trojans would have been difficult to impossible. Knowing what to answer when all those dialogs pop up asking if I want to "allow" some action to take place was difficult at times, but it has got to be absolutely mind-numbing for Joe and Sally Sixpack.

Once setup and using Microsoft's OneCare for security (as an experiment) I've been infected with only one minor virus and a couple dozen tracking cookies. Learning to navigate around the menu was challenging and having used XP Pro as my programming platform at work for several years helped only a little. VISTA's menu makes using it HARDER to use than using XP Pro, but I chose not to use the "Classic" menu.

When we tried two copies of VISTA Enterprise Edition at work a couple years ago six MSCE's could not keep them running on the brand new DELL 620D laptops they came on. Both had to be reinstalled several times during the three months that they were used, before our IT boss decided that an upgrade to VISTA was not in the department's future.

But, so far (knock on wood), the VISTA Home Premium I am running on this laptop has been rock sold stable and very fast, or at least as fast as my XP Pro was at work. Having 3GB RAM, and a 2.6GHz dual core helps a lot. It has not crashed once since I brought it home, but that could mean that the "phantom reboot" process is faster on this OS than on XP's,

When the next release of PCLinuxOS hits the servers (in a couple weeks I've heard) it will join VISTA on this laptop, and once again be the OS that I used 99% of the time.
Well personally I use Linux with one system dual booting XP. My flavor is ubuntu and it works great. Unfortunately I don't think linux is for the masses although if people would give it a try they would be surprised by the easy of use and intuitive interface (whether its KDE, Gnome, XFCE or Enlightenment... for the other GUI's out there they need much more polishing before they can even be considered).

My personal hope is that Mac's get the mass market since Mac uses OpenGL as it's 3D rendering and since this is the same base as Linux/Unix this would allow game companies to finally ditch DX and go for OpenGL as the 3D engines. If this route is taken then to port to Linux would be a sinch since OSX 10.X has a unix base thus allowing native linux games to happen much easier then current situation. Linux might not get it on release day since Linux would still get less priority but they would eventually get native binaries like ID software and Epic currently does. So my best hope is that Mac gains even though Mac seems to be just as draconian in the DRM and anti-open source as Microsoft is but since the base is very similar the port would be at least much more possible.

On a different note the one serious argument I always receive from people as to why they use MS software is because of support. Being that I have been involved with several migrations from one version to the next of MS software, be it Office or Windows I would strongly argue that there is so much more cost and many more headaches using MS software and keeping up to date then to use Opensource software that is always backwards compatible therefore converting several million doc/xls/mdb/ppt to new versions including macros wouldn't be such a pain. BTW when dealing with millions of files that have macros attached to them can take as much time as it takes for the next version of Office to come out, so the cycle repeats its self... over the last decade there has been billions waisted on "Better support" philosophy, it is time to change.
Being a satisfied Vista user, i would sincerely & seriously like to see the consequences & results of this article. Otherwise, i would be forced to dismiss this (article) as one more vent of personal frustration, to garner the votes of other fanbois.
Am I the only one who thinks the ads w/ Gates and Seinfeld are hilarious???
"Linux MUST.. simplify installation and simplify/standardise the installation of applications. Basically make it so your mum could use it. "

I sent my mom an install CD of PCLinuxOS for Mother's Day. I was planning on spending the day on the phone with her getting it installed, updated and installing software. When I called she was already using it. I spent a few minutes telling her how to update and install software, and suddenly we weren't talking about the computer anymore.

I haven't had a troubleshooting call from her since.
...and I want to love Vista. I spent 2 days setting up a dual boot system just to try it out. Got it all figured out and the way I wanted it to look. But it just feels... slow, unresponsive and broken. Try again MS

deltree WINVISTA
the average user can't use Linux? My 65 year old mum who doesn't even know how to plugin in a mouse into the back of her computer uses Ubuntu. She's been using it for over a year now, and the other day when she called I asked her how she was doing with it and she said she loved it. She's taking pictures of crap around the house, plugging the flash card into her printer, uploading them to the web via the Picasa client, and selling the stuff like hot cakes on craigslist.

I don't get it. If she of all people can use it, and ENJOY using it, how can people say it's difficult for the average computer user? My mum isn't even that...

It's just more FUD from the stuck up and inexperienced with Linux Windows crowd. They all must be empathetically quoting the one guy that had problems installing an antiquated distribution on a new high end machine. If you ask my mum, and she is an honest lady, she will tell you that Ubuntu has been easier and more reliable than when she was using XP.

I can not stress enough my confusion over people saying that Linux is difficult. Sure installing might be confusing...but it's easier than a Vista installation...trust me I just went through that whole deal installing Vista for my brother's mother-in-law. She's still po'ed that her outlook account didn't migrate. I was over there for 6 plus hours getting that POS OS up and running with all her old software from Vista, not to mention her old Cannon digital camera doesn't work because of driver issues. 

Seriously, I don't get it.
I have to say I've been running Vista now for almost 1.5 years. Other then a few driver problems and older hardware its been running great... in fact it hasn't crashed in over 6months and hasn't been rebooted in close to a month... Regarding new Hardware, deal with it. Software manufactures alway make changes that need better hardware. Installing the new adobe acrobat prof. I can't but help notice its sluggish and way way to be big for what it does, but I can't hear people complain about that... GET OVER IT. Pick on something else for a change. As someone said... Linux has how much market share?? You have to give it to MS for how they have run their business... running on over 90% of all PC's. Good on ya MS :-) hope your next OS keeps moving forwards.
I am sick of this vista flaming crap. I was an avid xp user since it came out as most people and when Vista came out i had the same worries and misgivings. Of course after my 6th or so reinstall of XP because of problems i decided to give Vista a try and lo and behold, I've been using it for a year and NO PROBLEMS YET. No blue screens, no slow downs , no incompatibility issues, no gaming fps drops, no hint of this DRM everyone keeps yapping about (at least it hasn't bothered me yet), in all, none of the horrible things that it keeps getting flamed with. None. I've fallen in love with it and XP in comparison seems so out of date and barbaric that it frustrates me just to use it for internet. Just in case you're wondering, I'm not a pc fanboy. i worked in graphic design with macs for years including leopard and I have just as many if not more problems than with Vista, i wont even mention XP. Mac and Linux are kings of incontestability though as i understand they are getting better, but its just not as good. I dont have a monster computer, though probably about average: a dual core processor 2gb ram and 8800 series graphics, and even then vista goes along without a hitch. If you want to be protected against malware, dont be a moron on the web, cut the porn sites, pirate sites, and dont open email like a moron and you will have little problems. Stop whining about vista and just keep youre opinions to yourself, they are biased and just plain wrong.
I wasn't going to reply, but the following is just so ignorant I had to:


"linux sucks
did the author even use linux?! putting a linux laptop to sleep involves a full shutdown/reboot cycle, controlled by some silly scripts. and it's 2008, ext3 still can't defragment itself. if that isn't crappy engineering, i don't know what crappy engineering is. 

say what you will about vista, but stop whoring for linux."
-----------------------------------------------------

Your first point about "putting Linux to sleep" is amusing because that's not at all what happens when I put my laptop to sleep. I run Debian GNU/Linux, Lenny, on an HP Pavillion dv6871 laptop. Moreover, your complaint about scripts is just as laughable. Everything is a script in Linux. Now you're going to write about how bad scripts are? lol. This website is a script.

Then you compained about ext3 not even being able to defragment itself. Well, the thing about the ext3 filesystem, dumbass, is that you don't need to defragment. The ext3 file system doesn't toss stuff all over the place like NTFS does. However, as a safety check for your filesystem, every 30 boots usually performs a file system check to see if everything is in order.

It's cool if you can't handle how advanced and reliable Linux is, but didn't your mama ever tell you to keep your mouth shut and let people wonder if you're an idiot rather than opening it and showing them that you are?
having moved to Vista after installing and using Ubuntu, I found the switch comparatively easier than if I switched straight from XP. The reason is that Vista does some things in a way that is more Ubunti like that people will give credit for. Even the Windows marlketplace is similar to the click'n'run warehouse for ubuntu and linspire.
btw, average joe would buy a pc with Ubuntu installed - I should know, I've sold 3 pc's and they have never asked me to install XP or Vista.
I don't get the windows users I know. They all keep using XP and saying that they're going to "skip Vista" and use the next version of Windows. I'm not sure what they think it's going to be that Vista isn't. 

I also don't get the Linux naysayers. As soon as you install Linux and start using it, they instantly define you as a "geek" and not an "average user"; ergo, Linux is only for geeks and weirdos because you are a geek and weirdo if you run it. I guess the number of geeks and weirdos in the world is on the rise, then.
Please include the alpha stage ReactOS. A free version of Windows XP, it already works and supports many programs.

It's based on the Windows XP API's, so it should work with any XP compatible software or hardware, and it's free.

www.reactos.org - Inq please included this when comparing OS's.
Someone wrote: "Linux MUST.. simplify installation and simplify/standardise the installation of applications. Basically make it so your mum could use it."

About a month ago, I took an old Compal CR-10 laptop with Win 98 preinstalled, and inserted a Kubuntu 8.04 Live CD in the CD/DVD drive. I gave the old 3-finger salute (ctl-alt-del) and the laptop soon booted into Linux. I played with the basic applications, loaded Firefox, experimented with this and that. Everything seemed to be working okay, so I clicked the install button on the desktop. 45 minutes and 5 mouse clicks later, I had installed Kubuntu Linux on the laptop. 

A little exclamation mark in the tray said that there upgrades available. I clicked the button and an updater screen appeared. About 15 minutes and 4 more mouse clicks later, I had a fully updated Linux laptop.

I think all the people who complain about how difficult it is to install Linux have never tried to install Windows from scratch. I have. Once. Never again. 

This someone also wrote: "My mum can use Vista...."

Another story... About 2 months ago, my totally computer ignorant partner saw an Asus eeePC at a local compute store and opined that it was "cute" and she wanted one to replace her aging Dell Win XP laptop. 

I explained that the eeePC ran Linux, not Windows. She said she didn't see that as a problem because she didn't know anything about Windows either, and anyway I always set up and maintained her computers for her.

When she got the eeePC home, my email had lit up with demands from clients that I had to service right then. About 4 hours later, things slowed down and I told her I had time to set up her computer. I glanced over her shoulder just in time for her to ask if there were some sort of code she needed to connect to our wireless router. I said yes and started to read out the WEP key, but she said she was too busy online right then. 

Turns out she got tired of waiting for me and decided to try it herself. She got everything working except the wireless, removed the ethernet cable from her old Dell (the wireless card had died a few weeks earlier,so I hooked her up to the router with a cable) and found a place to plug it into the eeePC.

Yeah, there are some things that Linux doesn't do, such as Quickbooks and some of the fancy games. But my partner finds Linux perfectly understandable, and "not nearly as scary as Windows".

John Kinney
I really want to completely switch to Linux. I do. But I'm a Joe 6pack, the average guy, who owns a few consoles and has been fooling around a little with windows for a while. I don't work in IT, and thank F@## I never want to.

I've installed Knoppix, Ubuntu Hardy Heron, Gusty Gibbon, and Feisty Fawn, Fedora, and Redhat. Installation is simple and easy, but completely migrating to using it for everything, is hard. For starters, the interface is awful. The logic of the menu options suck. The interface is something you'd expect from a bunch of communist anti-screen candy mmgleiben-speakers.
My PS3 has a better interface. So does my Wii and Xbox 360! And my new Mac Mini & Macbook Air kick the living piss out of any Linux distro I've installed.

Until the Communist err Linux Elitists get through their cromagnon hubris that the 'n00b' public who make up the other 98% of the world want something good looking, easy to use, and most importantly, with a universal application installer which is simple and just installs applications like they do on the Mac, or even like Windows, then their 'for great justice!' crusade to 'convert heathens' to their OS will fail.

I really want to completely replace windows with Linux, but where's the common sense in the community? To much 'mmgleiben' and too little finding out what people actually want.

I can't actually see any difference between the fundamental attitude of Microsoft and the Linux community; both ignore the need of the masses, and both seek to enforce their will, and their vision of the world on everyone else. Except Microsoft just wants to bleed us of all our money.
MacOS, Solaris and Linux could give MS a hell of a time once they got their act together and cooperate and sold a "unified" "MacLi-Solarix" OS.

Take the stable base of Solaris 10, combine that with the usability and philosophy of MacOS and make that thing run Linux binaries.

This would give MS a run for their money, finally - and would make them concentrate on their product and the value it offers to the market rather then just being soooo busy writing reports and playing (office) politics and twist customer's arms.

A unified "MacLi-Solarix" OS would put the bloated software company in Redmond into a really serious competitive situation and make them feel much less comfortable. 

But Sun, Apple and the Linux community most likely will choose to rather go their forelone and soreful own way, believing they can conquer the world all on their own ... in 123 or so years from now.

Too bad. 
It could be done, to dethrown MS but it won't happen. 

Ah well.

If I had to choose between Vista and Linux for my primary desktop OS, I'd still choose Vista. The reason? My XP stuff will, for the most part, still work on Vista, or at least better than on Linux.

Linux is great, don't get me wrong. It just has a fatal flaw: it's not Windows. Even Apple realizes this, and is forced to provide an emulation layer for Windows applications. No amount of imitation will ever make Linux have what Windows has. "Does it have <something> app on Linux?" "Uh no, but it has this imitation one." "But I don't want your imitation, I want the original." Good luck with Wine too.

The "it's not Windows" is something people fail to grasp, and it is why Vista, no matter how many flaws it may have, no matter how great the competition is, will still attract a substantial number of users. It's simply what we use, and Microsoft has always managed to maintain a level of support for its legacy that no other has matched.

So preach all you want about the virtues of "alternative" OSes. They're still fundamentally inadequate.
Linux isn't that common on the desktop but its near ubiqutous in the embedded space now. The reason for this is obvious -- its flexible, fast and rock solid. It just works. Its pretty much displaced all the closed source alternatives (such as vxWorks) for new projects.

Vista solves a number of problems that don't exist for the average user and introduces a number of new ones, mainly applications that used to work not working. It is a real pain to use compared to XP. Now we're being forced to use a system that doesn't work that well so we start looking around for alternatives.....suddenly Linux doesn't look at all bad for day to day tasks.......
" Don’t underestimate the power of gaming though, as the majority of new PC titles are delivered with Direct X 10 support. "

Don't you mean misunderestimate ? :)
the beauty of ext3 is that it doesn't require defragmentation.

try researching before opening mouth, otherwise people will see you have no brain.
@greig aitken:
What's wrong with OpenGL? the khronos group comes to mind, they should REALLY update OpenGL and not do the 3.0-isreally-2.15 thing, I have my suspicions about that group, seems they aren't the open-source types to me.

As for linux, the adoption of that has halted and might even slightly decline now is my impression.
And as for DX10, I agree that it's not enough but now DX11 is in the offing, and then what do we do? This comes back to the khronos group who also control OpenCL and are no doubt holding that back from developing in a natural pace too.

It's all so annoying, vista is the president bush of OS's, any sensible person hates him/it but it's so freaking unavoidable and hard to rub out.
I agree with some of the comments given in that Linux usage is pretty low (about 2-3% is closer to the truth from a few surveys I've seen) but it is steadily increasing.

The 'Average Jill/Joe' never installs ANY operating system - they just use the one that came with the PC. Most people would not know how to get Windows XP up and running successfully let alone Windows Vista (and I know since I've been a 'free computer service' for friends/family for years).

* Windows XP works fine.
* Desktop Linux works fine (especially polished distros like Ubunu, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS etc)
* Windows Vista works - but is VERY demanding on machine resources compared to XP and forget it on Netbooks.

Linux is NOT the worst choice for the desktop at all. Our household me, my wife and our primary/elementory school age children use it every day (Ubuntu 8.04 32 and 64 bit in this case). 
It is

* Extremely stable
* Virus/Malware free (when kept up to date with patches) and following good security practices.
* Has 1000's of free (and easy-to-install) packages which even my children have installed successfully for themselves
* Compatible with Microsoft document formats (although I tend to use ODF or PDF myself)
* Capable of playing all the media we want
* Has plenty of games available for it (have a look at http://www.happypenguin.org) even if there are nowhere near as many as for Windows XP

The reason that people won't use Linux yet is that everybody likes what they have (which is one of the reasons why people like XP and hate Vista other than the heavy hardware requirements).

I am not anti-Windows (although I wouldn't use it myself) but I am pro-choice. Microsoft want to lock everybody into using Windows (as they need the Windows/Office sales just to stay alive as a company). This means that they need to force people to upgrade software/hardware on a regular basis. Linux (on the other hand) does not belong to any one company and does not need a particular level of sales and tends (overall) to be more tightly coded. This means that even the most modern distributions can run fine on older hardware like my old 1GHz Pentium III/512Mb laptop for instance although obviously I cannot run state-of-the-art 3D games on this!

Imagine companies not having to buy office software (legally) and not being FORCED to upgrade PCs and how that would help the bottom line.

Imagine schools getting all of their software for free and children being able to take copies of any of this software home (legally) to run on home PCs without any worries.

Yeah Linux is still a minority operating system and I would imagine that Microsoft will still rule the roost for ages yet but the first cracks are starting to show. It won't be long before we have Linux offered in mainstream shops (like PCWorld) alongside Windows and OS/X (Apple Machines) and this competition will be good for the industry (and ultimately for Microsoft too I think).
I'm all for more Vista-bashing (those three who think it is good can put their implants back in and go to sleep again), but this must be the umpteenth time I've heard "Linux is on the rise". Since Y2K I've lost count of how many times I've heard that "the time is ripe for Linux".
Especially where gaming is concerned, including Linux and the notion of rising in the same sentence is nothing short of hilarious.

But let's leave Linux and concentrate on Vista, for the benefit of the three happy Vista users.
Once again I will refer to the only serious bit of survey existing on the Web : the Steam Survey.
Google it.
Check out the "Windows Version" section. The "Vista" category is 15.08% as I read it now, and if you add the Vista 64-bit share, you push up to almost 18%. That means that the rest of the gaming community is over 80% either XP or Win2K (well, practically all XP by the looks of it).
Two years after launch, that doesn't really sound good, hmm ?

Going further, the Vista users that actually use DX10 are right underneath - 9.66% of all users. So, basically, almost half of the Vista users don't even use DX10 for gaming.
Not exactly a great cause for the game companies, now is it ?

And remember that this survey is based on more than 1.7 million unique results - that's at least 1.699 million more than your average voting poll that is soooo important to the talking heads every four years.
No wonder every game still comes out DX9-compatible. If not, gaming companies would simply lock the door and hang the key outside.

So please, Vista-lovers, go on being happy about "your" OS, but cut it out with the denial already. Vista is crap, whether you like it or not.

The figures don't lie.
I installed Vista when it came first and it used more than 1GB of RAM for only itself, it was slow, unstable, yuck, i Just uninstalled and went back to XP. I tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu and OpenSUSE and I liked their intuitive GUI and settings. For basic computers it will work great, but in my PC it was a nightmare, I didn't even know how to install the drivers of many devices that my PC has. My Creative X-Fi (Yeah, Creative drivers suck) didn't came with any instruction or nothing, ATi, Intel, Marvell, the only device it recognized was the Network adapter and the Chipset's motherboard, but other devices like videocards, soundcards, USB Controller, didn't recognize them. Linux would really take off if it used an universal installer for everything aka Windows, an installer for drivers, an installer for applications, for everything. Installing Linux is a piece of cake, but making it work is not for the average joe, I'm a PC gamer and knows a lot of hardware and software in Windows, but in Linux, it drive me nuts and I really liked OpenSUSE. I was forced to install Vista to take advantage of DX10.1 and once I installed the Service Pack 1, it was totally different, so stable, much faster than XP and all my applications worked fine, even though M$ states that Vista driver model is better and stable, my Non working USB Card Reader driver managed to reset my PC with a bugcheck, so much for stability eh? If I just could find a webpage that shows all the commands for the Linux terminal to install appz, drivers etc...
I've got a 500meghurts running Windoze 2000 that's faster and more stable than my 2gighurts XP rock. it's pathetic Microsloth is like the United States(cooked) the country and company that can't do it anymore.
Linux will not gain ground until it becomes a viable gaming platform.
For those who think that XP is slower than Vista, try throwing 4G of RAM at it, just as you throw 4G or 8G at Vista.
You're using already.

Linux powers a huge chunk of the internet.

More so than you could ever know...

Only a complete luddite would use windows to face the internet and or serve web pages...

"My personal hope is that Mac's get the mass market"
This could never happen because a closed platform could never support the rapid hardware development that has seen the PC take over most of the computer market. Thats why your "Mac" is actually just a PC with a white plastic disguise, Apple just couldn't compete.
First, I agree with the point made in one of the comments; that Linux is the worst choice for a Desktop operating system. You can complain about all of Vista's 'problems', but that list is nothing compared to the inconvenience brought to the table by installing Linux on your PC. Linux is not very user friendly, and even an experienced Windows user will be lost using the operating system.

I'd also like to point out that the fears and hatred of Vista are not very well founded. XP had it's very large share of bugs at launch, and part of the 'problems' with Vista are not it's fault. It's not a broken operating system, and is in fact superior to it's older brother XP in a multitude of different ways. (Faster assuming your PC is capable of running the OS, newer and better APIs, much more secure, visually impressive GUI, better resource management, superfetch. Basically, the list is too long to go into detail about.)

I find that the majority of users bashing Vista haven't used it in the last 6 months, if at all, and that's where Vista's problems stem from. Too many people who do not know what they're talking about are spreading bad word about the operating system, and it's to the point that it's discouraging many people from using the operating system. 

I also feel that people have the wrong idea about DirectX 10. DirectX 10 isn't about making a scene look better than it would with DirectX 9. It's about making the same scene as DirectX 9 can produce, but doing it faster; more efficiently. It's all about efficiency, and DirectX 10 allows developers to do the same thing as DirectX 9 with fewer system calls. Having a faster API allows them to add more visuals without the game grinding to a halt on modern computers. The problem with that is that just because there's the potential for more efficiency, doesn't mean game developers are making use of it. That results in games that run worse in DirectX 10 than they do in DirectX 9.

People need to stop looking at Crysis as their DirectX 10 crucible, and start looking at Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed was properly coded to make full use of DirectX 10, and as a result, there's a significant performance increase using DirectX 10 over DirectX 9.

As well, the author of this article fails to go into detail about the majority of points he's used. He does criticize the 'Mojave' experiment, but he doesn't give any explanation or reasoning. People criticizing Vista and calling it a 'step backwards' often use moot points and false information for support, but in this case the author doesn't use any. 

And if you want to compare the eco-friendliness of a Green GUI and a Black one, displaying black images on most LCD displays uses less energy that displaying green. And in a couple of clicks, you could easily make Vista as green as you like. 

Even despite Vista being a 'failure' as some people might call it (Even though I disagree), It somehow manages to have over 17 times the market share that Linux has in the desktop market. 

I conclude that articles like these are doing more to hurt Vista than they are to help people make an educated choice about which operating system they should use on their next PC. They need to go into actual details about the 'problems' and what/how that's going to affect the end user, if they want to be helpful.
I'm not against solid products nor am I against competitive products nor am I out to say that Vista sucks everywhere. But we all know that Microsoft has committed some very egregious crimes to get a monopoly that populates nearly 90% of the "WORLD'S" computers. This is just wrong and it is an opening for potential disasters. For instance, with our fasciast government attempting to spy even on the population of the US they could get a bright idea to bargain with Microsoft on future anti-trust issues in exchange for access to those world's computers through some sort of nefarious code and back doors.

This doesn't even come close to covering my concerns about how they put 47 different programs that spy on you as you use your computer and report that back to Microsoft. You wouldn't let the government put hidden camera or mics in your home even if you knew you were a solid citizen with nothing to hide. It's just against our morality and ethics, so why are people allowing Microsoft to do this with hidden features in Vista?

But this doesn't even cover my concerns about how Microsoft committed criminal acts to become a monopoly and how they use that monopoly position to built lock in technologies meant to trap you and keep you purchasing their software and, and, to ensure that those lock in technologies are used to stifle competition and kill competitor companies completely.

This is why we shouldn't be using Vista nor why we should care whether Linux gains enough foothold to force Microsoft to improve their products. We, really, should be pushing to have the full acceptance/adoption of competing products across the whole spectrum of Joe Citizen life and work.

In other words, who cares if Microsoft makes a better Windows next time around!? We should be concerned with ensuring that everyone has a choice with the opportunity to learn new products and can make a decision on how to spend their money instead of being forced to spend it on Microsoft.
"did the author even use linux?! putting a linux laptop to sleep involves a full shutdown/reboot cycle, controlled by some silly scripts. and it's 2008, ext3 still can't defragment itself. if that isn't crappy engineering, i don't know what crappy engineering is. "

If you knew anything at all about Unix / Linux, you'd know that pretty well all automated processes are launched by scripts. (As others have already mentioned.)

Additionally, Ext3 suffers very little from fragmentation - something that even today with NTFS v 5.2 and even v6.0 (Vista) can't claim. 

I agree with many other posters that the main reason Linux has not caught on is that Linux is not fully Win32-compatible. This means that any investment into training or software licensing is invalid if a company or individual chooses to move to Linux. The interfaces and update procedures are relatively irrelevant, since as others have mentioned, most users don't install, update, or tweak ANY OS they use. It is relatively irrelevant to say that Linux is hard to install when I am the only one in my family who installs any OS' on our machines, and when I am the 'on-call' support for my friends. At least with Linux I don't spend time removing malware - yet.
I need to comment regarding those who are spreading the false impression that Vista is NOT infested with DRM. It is. Period. The problem for Microsoft is that with Vista they truly expected to have every company under their belt when it came to DRM. You can think of it like Apple's lock on music. Apple sold tons of music and it was playable on your computer or on their handheld device, and even then there was a limit. Microsoft knew this meant that if you wanted to switch off of Apple you couldn't or you'd loose your music. Sure you could burn it to a cd and re-rip it but you lost a lot of quality.

So, Microsoft knew that DRM was going to be the next LOCK-IN technology that kept people from switching to another platform, so they built a massive DRM infestation (infrastructure) into Vista and even drafted (militarily) the hardware manufacturers to implement specialized circuitry into their products to accommodate Microsoft's implementation. This means that Microsoft had the users (us), the hardware companies, and the content creators by the hairy gonads. Why would they have the content creators in their vice? Because it is costly to develop DRM content. You just don't run it through a press and out comes the content. This means that they would be spending great sums of development time and effort to write for the convicted monopolists OS and your content wouldn't play back on anything else. Think about a mom that buys $10,000 worth of content such as movies, music, etc for her family only to find that they have no choice if they decide to quit Microsoft say for Apple. Pay $500 for a new Windows DRM infested box or loose $10,000 + plus the more costly Apple product. Lock in--money in Microsoft's coffers and a lack of choice for the people.

Now, Apple and other companies started to see the light about the time that Vista was being released and a lot of them moved away from DRM. This meant that Microsoft wasn't going to benefit greatly from that lock in. Besides this we also had the issues with degraded content while playing legitimate MP3s and planned file transfer interference even on our own internal networks while playing MP3 files (which Microsoft was called to task on, admitted, and subsequently refused to change).

I used to describe it as Microsoft foaming at the mouth over DRM as they are. They really want DRM. They ache in their bones for DRM. They know that DRM will net them massive amounts of money and will lock people into their product. 

In the pas week we've read articles about how some companies are banding together to create DRM products that are domain based. We've also read about companies that are planning new and different DRM. We don't need nor want it. DRM benefits don't exist. It harms the legitimate users while the crackers can get the content without paying for it regardless of their attempts at it.

And to the guy that tries to demean 30 million Linux users. I only have to say to him that if he had a product that was in use by 30 million people he'd be pretty proud of that. Linux will go up and in many ways, over the long run, it will surpass Windows because the open source model is designed to allow incremental development and when product features match (in the long run) then people will chose the one that gives them the features for less. Every mention of Linux brings more to Linux. This is why you never ever hear Microsoft us the term "Linux". The more they do the more people ask "what is Linux" and the more people find out about how they are a convicted monopolist and what they did.