Amiga.org
Operating System Specific Discussions => Other Operating Systems => Topic started by: ElPolloDiabl on March 14, 2014, 04:53:45 AM
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A Linux install goes flawlessly and has all the drivers I need. The only thing it can't do yet is play DirectX games. Half of which crash while playing anyway.
Still have Windows 7 and XP plus a USB stick full of drivers that have to be installed.
Plus all the DRM. e.g. If you want to play a DVD, Microsoft directs you to a commercial software link. Even though there are free versions.
Windows was fine for office environments, but I don't think it is good enough as a consumer OS.
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There are lot of freeware players for Windows like VLC and classic media player for playing DVD's.
Lot of consumers uses Windows at home. There are also a lot of tutorials to help you to improve your experience in Windows.
If you like Linux,then you could try UBuntu. This Linux distribution is made beginners.
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I have been doing winblows tech support for a friend that's tech challenged and has a winblows 8 netbook. To help her with Win 8 I installed a neat program called Classic shell. This gives you a winblows 7 desktop look and feel while still having winblows 8 there. The start button is a circle with a scallop shell in it. Even though she has MS Office I put Libre office on it. It's sad but you pretty much have to replace so much to be safe and as amiga1260 said VLC and classic media player are by far better.
People always say not to judge a man till you walk a mile in his shoes... I have had to use windoze for games and a bit of web browsing... (I find it funny Firefox can't log in here on Amiga.org It says thank you for logging in but drops you right back out :P ) The Amiga and PegasosII/MorphOS are still my primary systems though. I do all my e-mail and art and news letters for Amitech-Dayton on them. I have walked that mile and then some. Having used xp and win7 pro and had to repeatedly fix an 8 system, (Because the trained tech keep breaking things. >.< ) I think I've earned the right to bash it. This thing will never be as good as Amiga.
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There are lot of freeware players for Windows like VLC and classic media player for playing DVD's.
Lot of consumers uses Windows at home. There are also a lot of tutorials to help you to improve your experience in Windows.
If you like Linux,then you could try UBuntu. This Linux distribution is made beginners.
I disagree that Ubuntu is made for beginners - Its more that it "Just Works" (tm) . I've been using Linux for nearly 15 years and I've tried them all including Gentoo - so would not describe myself as a beginner. Im using Ubuntu nowadays for my main machines simply because Im happy with what i've learned from using the more "hardcore" distro's like Gentoo and I've grown out of the need to customize and fiddle with everything. I just want the tools to get work done and Ubuntu does that for me. The raspberry Pi satisfies my inner nerd nowadays!
VLC for windows 8 only just launched http://wind8apps.com/windows-8-1-vlc-app/ anyhow!
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I use Ubuntu a couple of times and it is user friendly. Here in the Netherlands a magazine called Computer Idee. This magazine is for Computer beginners and they have many times recommended Ubuntu for beginners.
I use Windows, because I like to play games on a PC.
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I have been doing winblows tech support for a friend that's tech challenged and has a winblows 8 netbook. To help her with Win 8 I installed a neat program called Classic shell. This gives you a winblows 7 desktop look and feel while still having winblows 8 there. The start button is a circle with a scallop shell in it. Even though she has MS Office I put Libre office on it. It's sad but you pretty much have to replace so much to be safe and as amiga1260 said VLC and classic media player are by far better.
People always say not to judge a man till you walk a mile in his shoes... I have had to use windoze for games and a bit of web browsing... (I find it funny Firefox can't log in here on Amiga.org It says thank you for logging in but drops you right back out :P ) The Amiga and PegasosII/MorphOS are still my primary systems though. I do all my e-mail and art and news letters for Amitech-Dayton on them. I have walked that mile and then some. Having used xp and win7 pro and had to repeatedly fix an 8 system, (Because the trained tech keep breaking things. >.< ) I think I've earned the right to bash it. This thing will never be as good as Amiga.
Same here. I dropped my Win 7 laptop and had to rush out and get a new one. The only one available at the shop with the specs I wanted was a ASUS ROG i7 with Windows 8.0. After a couple of hours pissing around with Metro, I did a quick search online, found and installed Classic Shell and then assigned the different file-types to open using the old "classic" programs instead of the full-screen metro apps. I did the 8.1 upgrade later.
Now I've got what looks like and feels like Windows 7 running on my machine, but with the benefits of the faster Win 8.1 (it certainly feels that way) and better software compatability that Win 7 (I'm running old games on 8.1 that point blank refused to run on Vista or 7 even after spending ages screwing with compantability modes).
The only thing I hate is the forced password log-on and the attempts to stuff Skydrive down my throad. I have absolutely no itention of storing anything on the "cloud" even if I can easily swap data between my other machines and/or my Windows phone.
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must say i didnt even downloaded any classic shell, just dont use the metro apps almost at all, working with 8.1 desktop most of the time. im rather content with it so far, after i expected pure hell, listening to opinions in advance.
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must say i didnt even downloaded any classic shell, just dont use the metro apps almost at all, working with 8.1 desktop most of the time. im rather content with it so far, after i expected pure hell, listening to opinions in advance.
The Classic Shell is nice as it gives you the real START BAR back and it has extra features like the ability to disable those annoying slide-in menus that pop in from the side if you happen to move your pointer into any hot-zones. Plus, it is free. :)
If Microsoft had just included a "classic theme" with Windows 8 that could have been applied with one click then nobody would have been complaining. The Metro look works great on my smart phone, just not on a 1920x1080 32" monitor with multiple programs running that need to be flipped between quickly or run side-by-side on a single monitor.
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Classic Shell is great for home users (from what I hear), but useless for enterprise. Even if it is free now, what admin wants to run around installing something else on dozens or hundreds of workstations, just to provide functionality they already should have? I suppose it could be baked into the image, but since it's not supported by Microsoft, what if a Windows Update breaks it? Too much headache for corporations, thank goodness Win7 will be available for the foreseeable future.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/windows-7-change-is-good-news-for-customers-but-maybe-more-bad-news-for-windows-8/?tag=nl.e099&s_cid=e099&ttag=e099&ftag=TREd8c0fa8 (http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/windows-7-change-is-good-news-for-customers-but-maybe-more-bad-news-for-windows-8/?tag=nl.e099&s_cid=e099&ttag=e099&ftag=TREd8c0fa8)
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Classic Shell is great for home users (from what I hear), but useless for enterprise. Even if it is free now, what admin wants to run around installing something else on dozens or hundreds of workstations, just to provide functionality they already should have? I suppose it could be baked into the image, but since it's not supported by Microsoft, what if a Windows Update breaks it? Too much headache for corporations, thank goodness Win7 will be available for the foreseeable future.
Windows 8.2 is "supposed" to bring back the full start bar. After that they can fix that bland theme to Office 2013. Honestly, they hit you with huge, day-glow icons in Metro and then suck all of the colour out of your life when you start up Office 2013!
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Every version of Windows I've tried since XP has been a disappointment.
That being said, I purchased but never installed Win7.
I just haven't found the need for it.
Then again, I spend more time using MorphOS than Windows anyway.
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Every version of Windows I've tried since XP has been a disappointment.
That being said, I purchased but never installed Win7.
I just haven't found the need for it.
Then again, I spend more time using MorphOS than Windows anyway.
Every version of Windows since XP and before Windows 7... hmmm... I wonder what that could have been....
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No admin would be running around installing OS's (or even apps, individually system by system) on an individual one by one basis in the enterprise anyways. It'd all be done via LAN automated installs requiring no real admin interaction at all per terminal and Start 8 or other apps would be auto rolled/slipstreamed in along with other patches and applications via AIK or other means. Script/auto install means you can roll out a new OS upgrade to an entire fleet of PC's without ever having to noodle around at each individual system at all. I've only got about 8 PC's in my business network myself and have never fiddled around with manual installs or upgrades, auto installs are extremely easy to do via LAN. No sane man would be doing it via optical type media when they could do it in a flash via gigabit ethernet :)
That is, if Win 8 was being used in the enterprise at all. It's not, in my experiences. I still do a fair bit of IT consulting but my main trade is telecomms, and I've not once had a client specifically ask for W8 to be installed, tbh. If anything, clients buying new PC's ask for W7 downgrades if their new host systems come with 8 installed. It's not a bad os, W8 - it's just horribly foreign to users used to the traditional desktop experience, but 8.1 is a vast improvement and with the addition of start menu add-ons that can be auto installed, the Metro crap can be avoided outright.
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My favourite Linux (Pear) got bought out and shut down, it was brilliant. At work I run Ubuntu servers, they're pretty bullet proof. I prefer Google Docs to Free/Libre Office. I've got a couple really good help desk people working for me and a Mac Pro on my desk (home and office), an iPhone, a couple iPads and a Linux tablet, so I see little reason to mess with Windows.
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I run linux for most things but I still dual boot windows on a couple of machines.
Mostly, I use windows for games and just a few apps (like video editing) that are still lacking in linux.
Many linux enthusiasts realize that games, video apps and a few things are lacking on linux. Looks like those things are starting to be addressed lately and I'm hopeful for the day I will no longer have to reboot.
Still, probably will have to to run some windows games.
Wintendo in full effect for the near future...
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My wife's new laptop came with Windows 8. Ugh is all I have to say. She hates it, I hate it. Feels like a giant kludge. Sure I could install classic shell this, etc., but I'm not one who likes to have to customize my OS much for it to be ready to work with. Hell I don't even like installing programs on my computer unless I am absolutely have to.
Several months ago my Vista laptop started flaking out after Microsoft auto-updated some patch onto it that screwed Windows up. Seeing the writing on the wall that I REALLY do not like where Windows is going, I put Linux Mint on a USB stick and booted from that. I've been running it off the USB stick ever since - no real need to even install, all I ever really do on this laptop is browse the internet and edit documents and all my data is on an NAS. Really quite surprised how well this setup is working, certainly makes A LOT MORE SENSE than Windows 8.x.
I still have a desktop PC running Windows 7 that I need to use for work (Visual Studio). No complaints about Windows 7, just hate the hell out of Windows 8. It flaked out too with the same update Microsoft auto updated on it. Had to revert the updates until I was back in business and wait a few months to take new updates that fixed their screw up. Laptop Vista works again after recent updates but I still run Mint 100% of the time on it.
I have to say I've actually been happy with Windows since Windows 95 to Windows 7. I really have no historical hatred of Windows in general. As of Windows 8 however Microsoft has lost me as a customer. I'll be using Linux from here on out unless they fix the mess they have made. Not that it really matters to them, whatever computer I buy will still probably come with Windows installed so they get the $$$ anyway.
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Every version of Windows since XP and before Windows 7... hmmm... I wonder what that could have been....
Well, I guess that was a pretty pointless point.
But no matter how bad Win8 might be, it can't top Vista.
Most crash prone POS I've ever used.
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Every version of Windows since XP and before Windows 7... hmmm... I wonder what that could have been....
Windows 98?
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Windows 98?
I still use a boot CD of Win98SE to flash video cards.
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Well, I guess that was a pretty pointless point.
But no matter how bad Win8 might be, it can't top Vista.
Most crash prone POS I've ever used.
I can't say I experienced the same.
I have two machines that are on Vista Business SP 2( they came with SP 1), and other than the boot time taking abut 20 seconds longer than Win 7, they're virtually identical performance and stability wise as my Win 7 laptop.
Pre SP1, Vista was unfinished, 3rd party drivers were lacking (especially video and sound) and there were some file copy issues. The other problems was the aggressive indexing, and the on by default defrag.
Hardware wise old machines lacked enough RAM. New machines had a lot of crapware- when first turned on Vista tried to index all of the files, thrashing the drive and killing performance.
There are guides out there that let you tweak Vista and drastically improve performance.
I'll be using the Vista machines till I can't get MS updates and Vista is EOL.
No reason not to.
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I can't say I experienced the same.
I have two machines that are on Vista Business SP 2( they came with SP 1), and other than the boot time taking abut 20 seconds longer than Win 7, they're virtually identical performance and stability wise as my Win 7 laptop.
Pre SP1, Vista was unfinished, 3rd party drivers were lacking (especially video and sound) and there were some file copy issues. The other problems was the aggressive indexing, and the on by default defrag.
Hardware wise old machines lacked enough RAM. New machines had a lot of crapware- when first turned on Vista tried to index all of the files, thrashing the drive and killing performance.
There are guides out there that let you tweak Vista and drastically improve performance.
I'll be using the Vista machines till I can't get MS updates and Vista is EOL.
No reason not to.
Except for experimenting with DX10 video cards, I could find no utility in it.
Slow, bloated, buggy.
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Well, I guess that was a pretty pointless point.
But no matter how bad Win8 might be, it can't top Vista.
Most crash prone POS I've ever used.
LOL. Exactly.
Mind you, Vista became a lot more stable when the final service pack came out, but by then you could get Windows 7.
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Why reboot rather than a VM? I find that even Core i5's are sufficiently fast to handle a VM for modern games and other video intensive apps.
I run linux for most things but I still dual boot windows on a couple of machines.
Mostly, I use windows for games and just a few apps (like video editing) that are still lacking in linux.
Many linux enthusiasts realize that games, video apps and a few things are lacking on linux. Looks like those things are starting to be addressed lately and I'm hopeful for the day I will no longer have to reboot.
Still, probably will have to to run some windows games.
Wintendo in full effect for the near future...
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A Linux install goes flawlessly and has all the drivers I need. The only thing it can't do yet is play DirectX games. Half of which crash while playing anyway.
Not to my experience. I remeber my linux experiences as a time spent scrolling down page after page to find any solutions to my problems...
Or just to add new features to the os.
On windows machines i have rarely had the necessity to read page after page of forum sites to find any solutions. And if i had to, it have always been well documented.
Still have Windows 7 and XP plus a USB stick full of drivers that have to be installed.
Plus all the DRM. e.g. If you want to play a DVD, Microsoft directs you to a commercial software link. Even though there are free versions.
That is one annoying thing. the need for drivers. but then again. you just install it once. Or if you use custom install software it will do it for you.
I have never seen anything to the DRM stuff people are talking about.
i use mediaplayer classic. The hardware though, I have had to sett the zone on my DVD-rom manually once. Just sett it to zone-free-mode (in lack of better words) and it has never bothered me again.
Windows was fine for office environments, but I don't think it is good enough as a consumer OS.
Not just that. If you go for the "Home" editions you may experience som difficulties. I always go for enterprise or ultimate editions.
Just a little tweaking, installing custom drivers and I'm done.
I'm no programmer, im not a hacker i just want to enjoy a clean system that i can enjoy playing my games, watching some movies or tv series and just simply works. Windows is that to me.
I still have some computers running XP, but my main system is a W7 machine. it runs like a Swiss clock, and i have never had any glitch with it.
Not even a blue screen.
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LOL. Exactly.
Mind you, Vista became a lot more stable when the final service pack came out, but by then you could get Windows 7.
Well of course you could. Vista was a lame duck by then, and they couldn't really call it Vista SP3, which is what Win 7 basically is. Pretty much everything, including drivers, that works with Vista will work pretty much identically on 7.
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Well of course you could. Vista was a lame duck by then, and they couldn't really call it Vista SP3, which is what Win 7 basically is. Pretty much everything, including drivers, that works with Vista will work pretty much identically on 7.
I expect Windows 9 will be Windows 8.x with all of functions people want back by default and with a "theme" option for Metro and full screen, touch sensitive apps. In other words, Windows 8.2.
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They probably do need to separate the Modern desktop and the Classic desktop. I personally don't like the flop up windows ball formerly known as start, but I guess it's a matter of taste. If it's a non-server Linux box (I never put a gui on a server) I flip the task bar to the top and install a dock. I did that with Windows too (object dock is cool).
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8.1 Update 1 will return a lot of the missing desktop features we're still left having to patch with third party apps at the moment.
Due about the same time XP support expires, first week of April or so.
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8.1 Update 1 will return a lot of the missing desktop features we're still left having to patch with third party apps at the moment.
Due about the same time XP support expires, first week of April or so.
Great, maybe they can stop sending me those updates.
Hey, stopping support around April 1st?
Are they sure they are finally doing this?
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Yeah, support for XP ends on April 8th.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows/end-support-help
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Yeah, support for XP ends on April 8th.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows/end-support-help
Didn't affect my continued need to use Win98SE, probably not that earth shaking an event for my XP instillation.