Vista: Yay or Nay?

[Jack_www]

also Vista is the only operating system that will support DirectX 10, thus all the new games that will be coming out that use DirectX 10 will only run on Vista.

[Victor Galis]

I just heard that from my friends, which just triggered all sorts of bitterness.

New games really aren't that awesome graphics-wise. I don't see the improvement anymore, but I'm expected to accept lower frame rates and/or spend large sums of money for upgrades just because the idiot designers didn't realize they'd be better off not using fancy graphics and instead spending that budget on more content and/or gameplay enhancements. Not that I'm bitter about buying NWN2 or anything.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Solver
This is a case where you can definitely skip a version and upgrade to the next one. I do not see any features in Vista that would make it a compelling upgrade. And don't get me started on Vista's memory usage.

Originally posted by Solver
Why use the 32-bit version if you pay for a 64-bit processor?

Well, Vista has a revamped interface, which I don't really consider a major feature. The sidebar is nice, for many, but there's a crapload of applications that will do that for XP. It has automatic backups which are pretty good though. Speech recognition is included, though I'm unsure how good it is.

Vista has a lot of new annoying security popups with its new user access control. Something that I feel is greatly annoying...

Check out the other thread. You apparently do not know the scope of the new features in Vista.

I really don't think asking people to skip a version and wait 5 years for the next Windows to play new games that require DirectX 10 is a good idea.

[Asher]

It's also a bit odd, Solver, that you don't consider WPF a major new feature.

A 100% new from the ground up presentation layer that runs fully on the GPU rather than the CPU/system RAM is not a major new feature?

By your reasoning there have been no major new features in desktop Linux systems in about 13 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation

[DaShi]

I'll be getting it when I buy a new comp. It better be good!

[Asher]

Originally posted by Lorizael
Microsoft has been working on this operating system for five years or so; what's it actually supposed to do? What are its "killer features," so to speak? Or at least, what are its advertised killer features?

It is a massive OS upgrade. Most of what it does better are behind the scenes. Simply put, it's far more secure, looks prettier, will be far more robust (eg, drivers can't crash a system now -- the cause of the vast majority of bluescreens and freezes), and DirectX 10.

An equivalent game written in DirectX 9 on XP and DirectX 10 on Vista will run substantially faster on Vista. DirectX 10 is a major upgrade that removes tons of overhead associated with games that had to be used on other operating systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_features_in_Windows_Vista

[Asher]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Even I've been running Linux 64-bit for quite some time (but it still doesn't have a decent flash player ), and I've faced no driver issues. But Windows Vista does have driver problems with 64 bit, last I heard.

Can anyone tell me any way to get flash working on a natively 64 bit Linux system (WITHOUT a chroot)?

Linux still can't figure out how to do RAIDs properly, which is hilarious to me. Terrible design of their I/O subsystem.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Asher
It's also a bit odd, Solver, that you don't consider WPF a major new feature.

A 100% new from the ground up presentation layer that runs fully on the GPU rather than the CPU/system RAM is not a major new feature?

By your reasoning there have been no major new features in desktop Linux systems in about 13 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...ion_Foundation

Okay, forgot about the tech part. Though it disappoints me how Vista is said to have .NET 3.0 framework, which is all this fancy UI and such, but isn't really a big leap of the .NET framework per se.

I still hope DX10 gets released for XP eventually, though. I have skipped versions before (went to XP from 98), and don't want to be forced to move just because of DX10.

Now make Monad integrated into Vista!

[Asher]

Okay, forgot about the tech part. Though it disappoints me how Vista is said to have .NET 3.0 framework, which is all this fancy UI and such, but isn't really a big leap of the .NET framework per se.

The naming is peculiar...

But .NET 3.0 actually is .NET 2.0 + WinFX (instead of Win32). WinFX is completely new from the ground up and a HUGE upgrade over Win32.

And no, DX10 will never get released for XP. And this isn't a political move. Dig around on the internet...DX10 fundamentally relies on some tenants of Vista that do not exist in XP, such as the brand new driver model.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by Asher
Linux still can't figure out how to do RAIDs properly, which is hilarious to me. Terrible design of their I/O subsystem.

What RAIDs can't it do properly? Do you mean those fake hardware RAID controllers that are handled by dmraid?

[Dinner]

I never really liked Vista. I always thought it was kind of poor white trashy.

[Asher]

I mean if you set up a RAID using the RAID BIOS on your PC (Via and Promise I've tried), Linux will not recognize it.

If you want to run a RAID on Linux, you need to set up the RAID inside of Linux...and then no other OSes can read from the RAID.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by Asher
I mean if you set up a RAID using the RAID BIOS on your PC (Via and Promise I've tried), Linux will not recognize it.

If you want to run a RAID on Linux, you need to set up the RAID inside of Linux...and then no other OSes can read from the RAID.

I don't know how far along dmraid development was when you tried to do that, but I'm pretty sure that can be done *now*. Here's the output of dmraid -l on a RHEL AS 4 system that I happen to be logged on at the moment:

% dmraid -l
asr     : Adaptec HostRAID ASR (0,1,10)
hpt37x  : Highpoint HPT37X (S,0,1,10,01)
hpt45x  : Highpoint HPT45X (S,0,1,10)
isw     : Intel Software RAID (0,1)
jmicron : JMicron ATARAID (S,0,1)
lsi     : LSI Logic MegaRAID (0,1,10)
nvidia  : NVidia RAID (S,0,1,10,5)
pdc     : Promise FastTrack (S,0,1,10)
sil     : Silicon Image(tm) Medley(tm) (0,1,10)
via     : VIA Software RAID (S,0,1,10)
dos     : DOS partitions on SW RAIDs

Pinning the lack of this feature on the *design* of the I/O subsystem seems like a bit of a stretch to me, considering it should work now and I haven't heard of the whole I/O subsystem having gotten replaced recently (then again I could have missed it - it's not exactly rare for parts of the kernel to get replaced completely)... where did you get the idea that it's a design issue?

[Asher]

Back when I asked about it two years ago on some mailing list, I was told it was not possible with the current I/O subsystem design.