Thread: Don't buy windows 7 yet.

I wouldn't get Windows 7, if I were to go back to windows I would go back to XP becuase it's actually pretty ok these days, maybe windoze 7 will be in what - nearly a decade lol.

bought my iMac 18 months ago - best thing I've ever done in terms of computing.

Unfortunately that proprietary gun doesn't abide by the GPL and cannot be used by Linux!

I tried RedHat back in 02. It was ok, but like Alex said, there's just too much that goes into it for it to be a comfortable computing environment. The bottom line is that I don't want to have to find all these alternatives to the programs I like to use, or run emulation programs to run the software that doesn't have an alternative. It seems like the big draw for everyone is the customization of the OS. Honestly, I don't care that much. The only thing I do special is performance and security. I'm running some old hardware and still playing the newest games fine, and I haven't gotten a virus in over 10 years.

As for W7, I agree to wait. I don't think the release version is going to be too bad simply because they know they have to knock this one out of the park. But, it can't work perfect for everyone out of the gate. There are so many screwed up computers out there that some people are bound to have issues. Give it a few months and watch what the tech pros are saying. Frankly, I'm excited about this iteration of Windows. I think it can be the lean, mean OS that Windows needs to re-establish itself in the market.

I'm running Win XP on a desktop and Vista and Ubuntu on a laptop.
Need Windows to run Quicken, TurboTax and Garmin software, everything else Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04.
Don't need to expend money on Win 7.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

So do the later versions of Ubuntu come standard with Wine then?

Yes, the last couple over versions of Ubuntu have come with wine pre-installed, and as Ben said, if for some reason it wasn't installed, you can install it in seconds with the following command

Code:

sudo apt-get install wine

Or you can install it through synaptec

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

When I was screwing with it, winetricks - The Official Wine Wiki was handy also.

That was probably 80% of your problem. The default installation of wine is all you need. Playing with winetricks is for power users.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

before i los tmy thumb drive... I would keep the latest ubuntu distro on their so i could boot into ubuntu to troublshoot or install.

Installing ubuntu off of a usb drive is quick.

I do the same, except that I also keep a Ubuntu CD around. (some systems don't like booting off thumb drives)

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

Now that i think of it. Most of my problems came from me running a 64bit version of linux I think.

There's a pretty good chance you are correct. 64-bit has been stable for server applications for a long time. However, desktop 64 bit has only recently gotten good. I think it was less than 6 months ago that Sun released a fully functional 64-bit java. If you try again with 64 bit, I strongly recommend an application called "getlibs". It's not in synaptic, so you have to go find the .deb file yourself. Once it's installed, you can use it to solve dependency issues for 32 bit apps.

Originally Posted by commiecat

If you're starting over, just skip all the Linux flavor nonsense and use BSD.

lol, you can't hijack my thread, I already hijacked it. lol

But seriously, Win7 has been available for a long while to test. You do not need some pimped out brand new computer to use it. Like all previous versions of Windows, you can run it on old hardware, you just need to lower the settings. I have Win7 RC running on an old Dell here at work. Prolly a 2GHz CPU with less than a GB of memory. If you want the fancy interface and all the bells and whistles then that's where it helps to have the RAM, CPU, GPU.

My point is that you're not gaining anything to do this, and you're probably losing quite a bit.


I doubt you'll see many computer-illiterate upgrading their own machines initially. The caution should be given to people purchasing a new computer, as the manufacturers will install it by default.

With every past version of windows, I have unfortunately seen MANY computer illiterate people upgrade. My complete pc illiterate grandmother went out and bought a WinXP upgrade disk the day it hit stores. That wasn't good.

I do agree about manufacturers though, and that's a valuable addition to the list of warning. Sadly, many manufacturers also seem to think that it's okay to install a brand new OS on minimal hardware, and just "lower the settings."

Originally Posted by VeeDubb65

My point is that you're not gaining anything to do this, and you're probably losing quite a bit.

Well that's subjective. If you actually are trying to upgrade that old Dell, then your statement is correct.

If you have a computer built in the last few years, running either XP or Vista, then I think it's a different story. If you go from Vista to 7 then you're probably getting better driver support and something more polished. If you go from XP to 7 then you're getting 64-bit support (XP64 is a joke) plus a ton of new features, some cosmetic and some functional.

I think (hope?) that Windows 7 will be the next XP and not suffer the same problems at release as Vista and ME did.

as a MSDN subscriber, I've had access to Windows 7 (in varying beta forms) for months now, and it's certainly better than Vista.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Linux is only free if your time is worthless. Last month I spent 2 entire weekends trying to get UT3 to run under Wine on Ubuntu. couldn't get it to work, so I gave up.

After Windows was reinstalled (XPsp3) I double clicked the UT3 installer, ran it, and the game opened right up. That easy. Given what my time is worth (and it's not much) it's actually cheaper for me to buy Windows. (although I don't have to pay anything due to the MSDN subscription)

Originally Posted by jockeys

as a MSDN subscriber, I've had access to Windows 7 (in varying beta forms) for months now, and it's certainly better than Vista.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Linux is only free if your time is worthless. Last month I spent 2 entire weekends trying to get UT3 to run under Wine on Ubuntu. couldn't get it to work, so I gave up.

After Windows was reinstalled (XPsp3) I double clicked the UT3 installer, ran it, and the game opened right up. That easy. Given what my time is worth (and it's not much) it's actually cheaper for me to buy Windows. (although I don't have to pay anything due to the MSDN subscription)

OT: Do you play warfare?

Subtle bash.org quotes. UT3 talk. Are you trying to woo me, jockeys?

Originally Posted by commiecat

OT: Do you play warfare?

Subtle bash.org quotes. UT3 talk. Are you trying to woo me, jockeys?

aw shucks.

yeah I play warfare sometimes, username = jockeys

usually on weekends, I'm not in a clan or anything.