The one thing that turns me away from buying a Dell XPS is their damn MOBO!!..

Having said so, the H20 is a serious machine!!

 

I passed So how much better is this OS than the current one.

 

I ended up switching to Vista.. I like the eye candy but other than that and the sidebar I don't see too much thats very different.

I will say do a clean install- don't upgrade (I had to do both!)

 

Yes the upgrade option is garbage.

 

Bob,

Im running an ATI video card and it says I ca run Vista just fine.

Desktop Specs:
AMD Athelon64 4200
2GB PC 3700 DDR Ram
OS Running on a 74GB 10,000rpm HD
Data on a 320GB 7200rpm HD

 

I got it working now.. the Logitech Video Software was the problem, would shut off the Aero stuff. Also- a clean install works better, because as you add software, you will see what **** the bed with Vista.

Pretty Cool O/S.

 

I said screw it... last weekend, went out and bought a MacBook Pro 15.4" 2.33GHz Intel CoreDue 2GB DDR2 Ram, 120GB HD.

MacBook Pro = $2499
AppleCare 3Yr = $349
Student Discount = -10%

Never having to worry about compatibility, OS crashes, Plus being able to run OS-10.4Tiger and Windows at the same time = PRICELESS!

 

That's exactly what you have to worry about with mac's, haha. Regardless if it's an x86 architecture, the OS itself is still incompatible with a ton of software that's available for windows.

 

I have no device incompatibility, no software incompatibility, i just have to rip the MAC OS versions of the software and thats all. I have everything I need to do Architecture on the MacBook I need. Sure I cant play most games, but that is not what I got it for, I got it for school and work.

 

Exactly. That becomes quite a pain. I'm not rippin' on you or your choice in a laptop, that's just something you can't escape with mac's, intel x86 or not.

 

Have you seen XGL on Linux yet? If you're looking for eye candy in an OS, it's definitely the way to go.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Cz_2vKq5cZk

and

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rj3UPnriIxc

I dual boot my laptop with OpenSuse 10.2, and lately I've been spending more time in it than in my XP partition. I have no plans on upgrading to Vista... instead, I'm going to force myself to get into Linux more and become more comfortable with it.

 

That's exactly why the Mac is awesome - you get the best of both worlds. With Parallels, you can run all of your windows applications on a Mac, and through it's coherence mode they interop just fine.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpdclE_Jqa8

With the rising popularity of OSX, more and more software is becoming available, so this is a dieing argument. The Parallels solution is a bit of a band-aid but I'm betting that it's only temporary.

 

Parallels takes up a ton of memory. It's a good idea, but you're right in that it's a band-aid. If you try to run any type of semi-intensive app through it it slows horribly.

BTW, what version(s) of Linux is XGL available in now?

 

I had no problem is finding it.

Plus I work for a firm that runs MAC's so any software I need I can get.

I would not recommend Vista to anyone for at least a year and a half... remember what happened with Windows ME?

I'm personally fed up with Windows instability when running massive graphics applications such as 3D Studio Max or Maya. Plus, aesthetically, aside for Sony, windows based laptops looks hideous. MAC makes a much better looking product.

 

Well I got a chance to install it and play for a little bit on a new PC. Installed clean copy in about 30 mins. Some things I noticed.

For hardware that has Vista driver's (many don't but the OS has some compatible one's built in, possibly limiting features) When I tried to install a manufacturers driver it took about 3-4X longer to install? I don't know why, I think MS must be analyzing or creating a backup point before the driver installs.

Anyways I ran into no problems and It's pretty much idiot proof. You get asked a lot "Are you sure you want to do this" and "You must be a Admin is this ok" type stuff.

Stability wise I can find no fault even when I had like 30 processes running and a deozen or so apps/windows. The OS is very clean and the eye candy is something to be desired but not required. The transparency's are nice and the "Windows"/TAB ability is really cool to play with too (scrolls through the app panes). Hovering over minimized tabs displays a mini image of the screen, which is kinda neat. The search options built in work great and fast.

I had no hardware problems and to be honest it does kinda have a mac feel. Anyways I brought it over to his house and he's been playin' around with it and likes it.

I didn't mess with it for long but it's a very easy OS to use and an improvement visually for sure. Some software CD's I had would not load (Incompatible OS message), while other windows based softwares worked fine.

In short If you got a good working version of XP, wait till you need to upgrade or reinstall for some reason. There is no driving force or benefit going to Vista as of now. If your doing a new machine or reformatting, etc, I say go for it.

 

Try running 3D Studio Max wile manipulating a large model.

Stolen right from MAC OS-X

People have run into major issues trying to run iTunes on Vista. Apparently Microsoft is trying to push the Zune over the iPod and disabling the ability of iTunes to work work properly. Thats really nice for the millions of people who have iPods with Windows based machines.

I would honestly wait a year or so to get Vista on my desktop. I just don't trust Microsoft with new releases. Remember Windows ME?

 

I recently bought a new desktop that had vista preinstalled...right off the bat had compatibitlity issues with one of the programs I use most often & it doesnt look like the program maker is gonna work to make it compatible so that leaves microsoft to do it which I doubt will happen anytime soon.

Solution for me was to go back to XP on the computer.

I agree with Alex, stick with known OS's like XP or prior for the time being...they seem to work well for the most part...Vista may take a while.

 

Definately pro's and cons.

My Advice is do your homework and make sure you're needed applications/hardware currently work on Vista.

good read
http://www.powerdonkey.net/vista_sitemap.php


other pros ImageX and WIM Image Format, file based disk imaging based on an updated NTFS file system.

and Windows System Assessment Tool, which helps pick apart your system and subsystem to determine bottlenecks driver/app issues, and tweak performance based on what loads. Of course you can do the same in xp, but this is a nice complete method that shows you whats impacting what at what %.

 

I think only SUSE. I have distros of Debian/Slackware/Redhat on my pc, I can try them, but XGL is not the only Linux GUI.