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New notebook - best to wait for Vista?


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OK first up no Mac comments allowed!

 

Will be buying a new notebook soon and wondering if it would be best to wait until Vista is released or whether it might be better (cheaper) to get a good vista-capable machine now on one of the upgrade programs lots of places are doing and just upgrade to vista when it's released?

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Hi LX

I am in the same boat.

 

lately i have noticed these stickers

vistal.jpg

 

But i am not convinced that this will be a guaranty that vista will run smooth.

I remember the launch of Windows 95. Microsoft claimed that iw would run in 4 mb of ram, however after a few months MS admitted what the beta testers knew, 4 mb was totally unsuitable.

Vista will be out in 4 or 5 versions. That sticker doesn't say which version will be suitable.

 

Furthermore you will probably not be able to get a cheap, legal OEM version of vista if you buy now, unless you can negotiate a deal with your computer pusher.

 

On the other hand, you might be able to get some good deals on pc's now. I guess all the dealers would want to clear their stock of older models before V-Day.

 

i am waiting though.

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It would be better to wait.

To tell you the truth the big industrys are holding back on the cutting edge regarding notbooks and selling off all the old(ish) stock under the veil that they are vista ready.

The truth is they are vist ready and you are better off buying something with an nvidia chipset.

 

But I would wait until blue ray is properly intergrated, sony already has a blue ray laptop with HD output.

 

Wait at least 6 months before the tech become mainstream.

 

 

When you get your vista ready laptop, install ubuntu linux on it :p

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If you wait for Vista then it will come bundled with the notebook. I wouldn't wait any longer though for better tech like blue ray or you'll never get a notebook (unless blue ray emerges when Vista does)! I've been shopping round and researching for 6 months and found I always kept holding back for the new technologies, never works, especially with laptops. Single core, dual core, next quad core. Wait for Vista then settle on what's best then!

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ubuntu linux is the shit.

Open office is in its second generation and doesnt have any major problems using Microsoft office files. The only problem I have(using it in my office all the time) is that English to Japanese on excel is difficult to encode proberly(not impossible though)

 

If you are a game player, you could always have dual boot.

 

If you want something that is really flashy check out compiz, beryl or emerald for ubuntu or any linux distro. It will impress anybody. (flashier than Vista RC1 now. )

 

Watch this video to see what linux can do these days

 

It can also be done on a laptop.

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I want to jump totally of the Microsoft ship, XP OS is the only Windows thing I have operating on my computer now, every other peice software is something better than Microsoft makes.

ubuntu huh? might check it out.

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getting intolerably slow and old

 

You could just remove all your spyware and use msconfig to remove a lot of the startup scripts and programs.

 

Well ubuntu is really easy to install, world will almost every kind of hardware, is based on debian a very rebust linux platform, and even the desktop version can be used as a server.

 

During the weekday I work as a network engineer and linux specialist (though not really a specialist I just use it everyday and can get buy most problems or install almost anything)

 

I could be convinced (with cash) to install ubuntu, convert all office documents to "open" and give an introduction to using linux as an alternative office desktop.

 

But if you have a free weekend you can do all that for free by just going on the internet and looking around.

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After using linux for 6 years for my work and teaching, I would rather place leaches on my eyeballs that install it on a home computer.

 

I would wait for vista or maybe got for a mac if that's your bag

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I've used Debian, Mandrake, Redhat and then Fedora, Mandriva and I've been using ubuntu for the past year.

 

It has definitely come a long way and there are a lot of basic tasks that work smoothly (multiplatform software such as firefox play a large part in that). However there are so many little things that are frustrating. Given how much time I have to spend in front of a computer, these things end up making a big difference.

 

I *can* understand why some people like it, but if you don't like tinkering, it can be painful.

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Debian, Mandrake, Redhat and then Fedora, Mandriva

 

What are you talking about?

 

confused.gif

 

 Quote:
You could just remove all your spyware
I don't have any spyware

 

 Quote:
You could use msconfig to remove a lot of the startup scripts and programs.
Perhaps if I knew how to do that.
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Liquid X, go to the start menu and go to "Run", type "msconfig" in the run box and when the window pops up go the right hand tab which should say start up.

All the programs that up with you computer are listed and click off all the unnecesary stuff.

If you arent sure check a site like this

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

it will tell you if its necessary or not, some things are vital.

The less you have the faster your computer will load at start up

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Here's my curmudgeonly take on this.

 

--Assume you are the type of user that doesn't already know the answers about when to get/not get Vista, and/or what machines it will run on (and no slight is intended here at all, this describes most users around the world). Let's call this the "Average User".

 

--There's nothing in Vista that's going to change your life or user experience for the better. You've already got it all in Windows XP (please don't tell me about transparent windows and having maybe 2GB of RAM just to enable this...it's just eye candy which has long been available in Linux versions that will run on 512MB of RAM or less, and in Apple's OS X).

 

--In fact, don't get Vista. It is a bloated system hog that will have scads of upgrade, install, driver and setup problems for the first 6-12 months as the initial bugs are tweaked and third parties provide their drivers and updated versions. Your printer won't work right, you'll get an error like "spooler crash" or something. Your external drive or USB stick won't work. Your iPod will be erased...anything is fair game in this stage. Or maybe those devices WILL work...it's a gamble. This always happens when MS rolls out their latest OS. During this period, and even for the next 3-5 years for sure, you'll be fine with Windows XP. So you can go out today and buy a nice laptop. Get a nice load of RAM. By the time you are done with that laptop, Vista will be ready for you on the NEXT machine you buy.

 

--If you are an Average User, then Linux is most definitely NOT for you. It is just not ready yet. If you want to do the things most Average Users do, you can do some easily, but others are a nightmare, or not even available at all. Example: I don't think you can run iTunes on Linux. Windows Media Player files...there is a solution, but you better be a geek or you won't be able to get it to work, and you will have constant errors and searches for codecs. Burning DVDs...just not as easy or reliable as on Win or Mac software. Japanese input...good luck, it is messy and all over the place. If you can even get scim-anthy or uim or whatever to turn on and work on your system, it probably won't work right in other apps...Open Office doesn't always work right , somebody already mentioned the Excel problems...and the predictive input engine is primitive compared to MS's Global IME or the ATOK engine you can get for Apple. I think you can BUY Turbolinux Fuji (which includes the ATOK input editor) for 16,500 man, but hey, Linux is supposed to be FREE, and also, I read on some bbs posts that the J input in Turbolinux only works right if you also have J as the system language. Scratch the surface of any Linux desktop distro and you find you need to be a supergeek just to stay on top of it. You don't need this, you will beg to go back to Windows or Mac. I lost a whole day trying to get Japanese input to work on Ubuntu and just gave up. There's no explanation for why it won't switch on. I am into a world I just can't understand, with suggestions to enter a half-page of gobbeldeygook commands and code, it is a joke.

 

--I kind of hate Apple's image and the Church of Mac mindset, and I never really clicked with OS X. But really, for the Average User, just get a cheap Mac and be done with it. You turn it on and it works. There is very little tweaking and maintenence, you can run MS Office, at present it is not the main focus of hacker, virus, trojan, worm, or malware types. It is just a tool that gets the job done as opposed to a hobbyist's tinkering paradise (or nightmare). And you can dual boot it with XP if you want using Boot Camp (available free with simple instructions from Apple's website).

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Yes, for a long time even after Vista is released, Windows XP will still be on sale both as a standalone retail box, and also as the pre-installed OS on OEM machines such as Dell, HP, IBM, etc. And in XP you will be able to do everything people do today, going forward. Office, Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, whatever. Games, DVD burning software, iTunes, etc. None of that is going to change or be cut off for a long time.

 

You can still buy Windows 98 today, brand-new.

 

Even as late as 2005 I could still find, on the IBM site, ThinkPads for sale with the option for Windows 2000 preinstalled.

 

And, Microsoft will keep supporting XP for a long time even after Vista comes out.

 

If I had to buy a Windows machine right now, I'd buy a machine loaded with XP that is "Vista capable". All this means is that somebody judged the innards to be big and strong enough to run Vista. Then you can just upgrade to Vista whenever you want, for a hundred dollars or so.

 

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but frankly speaking, why in the world would anybody want Vista? What does it do that XP doesn't do? It is just the latest way Microsoft gets money for needless upgrades. Vista is built on the same kernel as XP. It has the same security vulnerabilities, now they have added a layer on top to keep askng you "do you really want to do this?" as if that will help you avoid worms, viruses or malware...early testers report that annoying question coming up dozens and dozens of times, with no useful information and no way to judge whether it is a good idea to click Yes or No. Average users got fed up very quickly. Vista developers dropped plans for a new file system that was supposed to revolutionize things, so the file system is the same old NTFS as ever. You can run the new version of Office that just came out on XP. You can run Internet Explorer 7, which just came out, on XP. Media Player works fine in XP. What does Vista do for you? It is reported to run slower than XP, and takes up huge amounts of RAM and disk space. It sounds like a terrible thing. And all the bugs and problems haven't even hit yet as they try to iron out the flaws...if I were you, I'd just get XP and be done with it! Now is not the time to get Vista, you can upgrade anytime in the future, but you may decide never to do it as you eventually see that nothing you do on your machine will be any better than it is in XP. Maybe it's worth looking again in 2 years or so.

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