Seeking opinions on XP / Vista

[lylehaze]

I've been limping along with an antique for too long. Now I'm looking for a new computer. I have choices to make:

I found a cheap, underpowered PC for $300 that comes with XP Home. The cheap price is tempting enough, but it won't go above 1 Gig RAM.

I found a more powerful Dell available for about the same amount. But the Dell comes with Vista, not XP.

Funny enough, Dell offers XP for an EXTRA $150. That increases the total cost by 50%, just to get the "old" OS instead of the new one. That's about the stupidest bit of marketing I've ever seen.

Anyway, the people here would be the best gauge of how well Vista works for me, as I'll be using it for developing MBox stuff, running Eagle, GCC, and stuff like that.

I am NOT looking for a cost-alot-go-fast gaming machine, just for solid productivity in programming and board design.

Any suggestions from more experienced people are invited.

Thanks,

LyleHaze

[Wilba]

Go with XP.

I upgraded my notebook from XP to Vista... it's got 1GB of RAM and it runs slower for everything, and then I had trouble finding compatible drivers... i.e. notebooks with an ATI Radeon Mobility graphics chipset won't run the ATI reference drivers, as notebook vendors want you to only use their drivers, and when they don't publish Vista-compatible drivers, you're screwed. Well, not totally screwed... you go and find something like this: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php to get the ATI reference drivers to run on your Vista notebook...

Here's an interesting article about how cheap, low-powered notebooks are keeping XP alive...

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001179.html

[stryd_one]

Yep, cheap hardware+vista=bad idea.

That said, you can probably re-use the old OEM license sticker on your existing box, to reinstall XP on the faster dell...

Or, like, go linux.... For programming and board design, chances are, linux is your best bet... It'll only cost you a day or so to try it anyway ;)

[lylehaze]

Stryd: My existing box is 98SE, not XP.

I tried Ubuntu on it, but couldn't get the video right. Since it's my "second" PC, I would prefer windows, only because it is the most "universal". Not because I like it or anything.

So after reading up a bit more, I have found a under 400 desktop machine that comes with Vista AND XP-Pro. But it's weak on RAM, so that would add a bit.

After reading the article Wilba pointed me towards, I'm giving serious thought to getting an Acer Aspire One as a desktop replacement. Sounds silly, but it could be the best of choices. It is admittedly a bit underpowered, but ALL of the cheap-as-I-can-get computers I have looked at are.

It comes with 120G HD, 1G Ram, and XP. I know the ram seems a bit light, but I think 1 gig is enough for basic Eagle, GCC and MPLAB on XP, right?

The best part is that when I go "on the road", I can take it with me. Being ultraportable is handy for a lot of things. Checking E-Mail and Mapquest from hotel rooms, downloading camera cards to the HD. All that is BONUS that a cheap desktop won't be useful for at all. I "lose" having a built-in optical drive, but I can convert a drive I already have to USB for just a few bucks.

I'm asking for opinions. If you think I'm right, or if you think I'm wrong, speak up. I know I'm getting a "cheap computer", and I will NEVER try to play games on it. Think it's good enough for what we do around here?

I need sleep.

LyleHaze

[stryd_one]

Wilba knows stuff. I hadn't read his link yet (I was posting from work in lunch break heh) but yeh. I had been eyeballing one of these type of machines... only reason I didn't go that way yet was that work are supplying me w/ a laptop and I have a fast desktop now. 1GB of ram is what this laptop runs, and it handles all that stuff just fine. Just avoid anything with Via chips if you want to do audio.

As for ubuntu, is it an nvidia or ati card by any chance? There's an easy way around the driver woes (caused by closed-source drivers) with those... Still, I understand why some dudes would rather stay on the pseudo-standard of windows.

[Goblinz]

My mum's got Vista on her laptop. It went wrong and I couldn't fix it! I found it very hard to work with and service if it goes wrong, to the extent that I had to do a re-install because some of the hardware stopped working. All the nice handy menu's have disappeared but I daresay there's a way of making it look like XP. As mentkioned elsewhere, it eats RAM. tis supposed to run fine on 1GB but 2GB is a better number. There is something funky that you can do with a USB memory stick to make it run faster (I don't think it uses it as actual RAM, but maybe uses it for the paging file??)

I'm guessing the price from Dell is if they supply both windows XP and Vista. Give them a ring and try and get them to just supply Vista.

As for computer specs. My home PC is an AMD 1.2MHZ (Board and Processor Aquired from someone doing an upgrade), 768 MB RAM, 256MB Graphics card (had been chucked out in an old PC I found on the street), >400GB storage (100GB bought very cheaply from other people's upgrades). This is fine for what I do. I can play a lot of games, run office software easily, internet browsing, video ripping, watch DVDs, etc, etc I daresay it's be more than enough for developement

I used to cheat with the windows XP license too.... They sent me a 180 day free trial of XP. I like to re-install every 6 months or so anyway to keep a fast running machine. I'm not sure if this makes me a bad person or not :/ . I have since got a full version of windows anyway.

Whereabouts do you live? Is there no other source for cheap computers, maybe on the second hand market?

      E

[nILS]

XP +1

As much as I dislike Microsoft in general I'll have to admit - XP runs stable as hell, I never had any problems with driver support (at least not in the last 5 or so years), which I can't say for Vista (possibly add a "yet" here). It runs on fairly low spec computers without any problems, too. I've ran XP on an old Pentium 200Mhz with 64MB RAM - it's a bit slow, but not horribly. Vista does come with some interesting improvements, but it's just not "there" yet.

[lylehaze]

Thanks to all for your info.

I'm going out today to look for a Acer Aspire One.

Most of the time it'll be a "desktop" machine, but being a netbook when I'm mobile can't hurt.

I checked specs against my wifes older XP laptop, and it doubles her HD and ram, and improves the processor clock slightly as well. Hard to beat for $350.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Maybe once I get this setup I'll be able to get into the CVS all by myself!

LyleHaze

[madox]

...I'm going out today to look for a Acer Aspire One...

Hi,

I'm a bit late coming in on this, though thought I should mention a couple of things. Dell (in Australia at least) will generally supply you with XP for no extra cost, provided you can convince them you are an 'enterprise customer'. This is usually not very hard to do, I believe.

One other thing you should know about Dell, is that their systems are a bit tricky to install Linux on. It can be done, but is difficult for a beginner. Trying to do a basic installation, without some customisations, will result in the sata driver and the usb driver trying to load into the same resources in a race condition. It can be worked around, though you may need some help with this if you are going it alone and want to try Linux. Dell actually do a distro of Ubuntu, though it is out of date, and it also suffers from the same problem. Yay.

Also on the Linux bent, it would probably be worth buying a machine with a built in Com port, and possibly PS/2 keyboar/mouse, if it is still possible. Actually I like these hardware options in general.

My general opinion with Vista, is that it runs well on great hardware (only). Some systems which ship with Vista, actually can't run half of the OS's fancier features at all. This is not very well advertised (what a surprise). There at least a couple of grades of Vista compatibility, something like Vista enabled and Vista recommended, though I can't remember exactly.

Moving to XP from Win98, you will be more vulnerable to malware (actually, more targeted is probably a more accurate description), so you will have to take some precautions to safe guard your machine. Win98 has become targeted less and less as XP has become the main stream OS.

It would also be worth maintaining your Win98 machine, as it can be more convenient for some chip programming tasks. It is still very common to see ancient DOS machines in R&D labs for this task.

Hope this helps.

-madox

[Twin-X]

Hi,

You can go for vista but keep in mind your pc must have: 2gb ram minimum + intel core 2 duo for a smooth machine.

At  my office we run 7000 machines on vista for 1,5 years. If you have vista sp1 then a ton of drivers are included (for those people that whine)

@ home i run 3 vista machines too the slowest is a 2ghz p4 machine with 1gb. My girl uses it for internet. Never crashed.

Vista is good. People make it look bad cause they don't know how it works.

Anyway next week im on microsoft tech-ed barcelona and have a few side meetings with some product managers. I hope i can slip in some better midi acception in windows 7. They tend to listen on those meetings ;). If you have any advice or wishes i can bring along tell me...

[lylehaze]

Thanks to all.

I'm typing now on an Acer Aspire One. Nice little machine, comes with XP.

Only about 50 bucks more than a low end desktop box, but it should cover that just fine along with being VERY portable.

Nice little machine, but I'll need a "regular" keyboard and mouse for dev work.

Thanks again to all for the advice. I really like this little thing.

LyleHaze

[cimo]

Anyway next week im on microsoft tech-ed barcelona and have a few side meetings with some product managers. I hope i can slip in some better midi acception in windows 7. They tend to listen on those meetings Wink. If you have any advice or wishes i can bring along tell me...

yes i have a small package you may drop by in the area but please take a walk in the city afterward for a couple of hours....  :P

Vista is good. People make it look bad cause they don't know how it works.

oh I am sorry mr Gate but i am too dumb to use your latest OS i fully understand and appreciate your effort on delivering the best OS experience ever and I apology for being such a dumbdick, i promise i will take advantage of any Vista learning course that you may organize, by payment, of course, in the nearest city

I also want to thank you for embedding your OS on nearly 90% of the computers out there, so i don t have to waste any neuron cycle to think about which one to choose and i can use that energy to do basic tasks like Windows-Windows file sharing.

Your devoted and faithful

Simone Marin VISA number: 69686968696 (please charge me in advance for any piracy of your product i may incur in)

You can go for vista but keep in mind your pc must have: 2gb ram minimum + intel core 2 duo for a smooth machine.

Sorry i can t buy such a machine right now, i am a carpenter and have a daughter, sir, so i can t buy a new machine everytime an overpaid OS developer decides to enhance my OS experience (ooohh i am c****g), in my Linux machine i can t turn all the nice Compiz features (which i don t use anyway) on and off, and i run it on a 1Ghz machine with 512Megs and it even serves as an audio production machine,not that i make music, just in case. dig that.

If you have vista sp1 then a ton of drivers are included (for those people that whine)

maybe they whine cause they paid for something that is supposed to work out of the box.Vista before sp1 was a rather expensive virtual paperweight, so i don t think it s a real nice policy to USE YOUR OWN CUSTOMER AS BETA TESTERS, in the Open Source world you are usually asked if you want to participate in the development process.

Can you imagine buying a PIC with a mandatory MIOS installed and having to pay TK for that even if you are going to make a flashy xmas tree decoration?

Now i have to pay you a couple of Grolsch to make up for this post, and hey have fun in Barcelona.

Simone

[Screaming_Rabbit]

If you have vista sp1 then a ton of drivers are included (for those people that whine)

I don't like Vista at all but I use it on my tablet to stay up to date and since Vista is very advanced in touch features compared with XP-Tablet. But I have to say, that it runs very stable here.

A problem I see for developing is, that a lot of nice and pretty freeware developing tools are not running on Vista yet or even might never be adapted.

Greets, Roger

[cimo]

ok Jeffrey 2 beers are heading towards you

The beer culture in Netherlands is a bit different from, for example, Belgium and Germany. Beer is regarded as either a delicacy or just a way to get drunk, the latter being predominant among youngsters who are allowed to consume alcohol from age 16.

[Twin-X]

ok Jeffrey 2 beers are heading towards you

thx for the beers ;) ms basher  :D

[cimo]

Hardcore OpenSource:

http://www.lemote.com/english/yeeloong.html

[stryd_one]

When will SmashTV stock kits?

(N00bs, that was a joke. Do not email smash about these kits.)

[Smithy]

Stryd: My existing box is 98SE, not XP.

I tried Ubuntu on it, but couldn't get the video right.

+1

Both gutsy heron, and 8.04 cocked up the video for me, also both couldnt detect my broadcom wireless adapter, so it was goodbye to  Ubuntu. No way am i prepared to type out a page of commands to fix driver issues - being forced to use command lines is something that should stay in the 80's imo!

Before someone buys a new laptop/pc preinstalled with vista, i recommend checking the manufactures site first,

to see if they have XP compatible drivers, so you can downgrade easily.

Toshiba is one of the manufacturers ive noticed that have XP compatible drivers.

WindowsXP is okay, but TinyXP Rev 09 is freaking awesome!

Being using it the last week, and its amazingly faster/liter i love it!

Problem is, it uses an illegal serial number, so the downloaded version is not legal but....

By using N-Lite and an XP setup disc image, you can achieve the same results legally by using the same script.

[Smithy]

I upgraded my notebook from XP to Vista... it's got 1GB of RAM and it runs slower for everything, and then I had trouble finding compatible drivers... i.e. notebooks with an ATI Radeon Mobility graphics chipset won't run the ATI reference drivers, as notebook vendors want you to only use their drivers, and when they don't publish Vista-compatible drivers, you're screwed. Well, not totally screwed... you go and find something like this: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php to get the ATI reference drivers to run on your Vista notebook...

EDIT! I just spotted that the Omega Drivers for ATI + Vista are "coming soon" and are not available yet!

They do however have vista 32 + 64 drivers for Nvidia Cards.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have you ever looked at the alternative ATI drivers, called the Omega Drivers?

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati.php

I hate the bloatyness impact the Catalyst Control Centre had on my system, especailly the longer boot up times,

so decided to try the Omega ones instead. You can always disable CCC but youre loosing out on the optimizations then.

After installing the omega drivers my system was back to full speed again, and never had a problem with them.

Theres also a lot of extra features packed with them.

I'd recommend them to anyone with an ATI card who isnt happy with the bloat of CCC.

They also do Nvidia Drivers & 3DFX drivers on that site!

[cimo]

+1

Both gutsy heron, and 8.04 cocked up the video for me, also both couldnt detect my broadcom wireless adapter, so it was goodbye to  Ubuntu. No way am i prepared to type out a page of commands to fix driver issues -

if you do it for a midibox why not for your own computer?

being forced to use command lines is something that should stay in the 80's imo!

no i think it s something for the curious and brave, you can stay out.

[Smithy]

if you do it for a midibox why not for your own computer?

Because i dont want to spend my free time to tbh, i want my computers OS to be user friendly,

my computer is not a DIY project! Thats just my opinion, i know plenty of linux users will not share it!

I just believe that a good OS should always give the option of doing everything via GUI, and command lines.

Not just one or the other. And hopefully in a few years time Linux will offer this. Its almost there!

no i think it s something for the curious and brave, you can stay out.

I will. thanks.

[cimo]

After installing ndiswrapper, it takes 2 lines of command to get the thing working, copied and pasted from the numerous tutorials, in my own experience that takes less or the same time than downloading a Windows driver and install it.

Anyway in 8.04 i was able to install the Broadcom driver simply enabling wireless during install.

Simone

[286]

I hate the bloatyness impact the Catalyst Control Centre had on my system, especailly the longer boot up times,

so decided to try the Omega ones instead. You can always disable CCC but youre loosing out on the optimizations then.

After installing the omega drivers my system was back to full speed again, and never had a problem with them.

Theres also a lot of extra features packed with them.

Another option would be to just use Ati tray tools instead of CCC. (It's the same program that is installed with the omega drivers.)

[Smithy]

Anyway in 8.04 i was able to install the Broadcom driver simply enabling wireless during install.

Simone

Maybe thats my problem! i was using the Wubi Installer for both versions , and its an automated install.  :(

Wubi is great though if you dont want to bother partitioning your system, or burn a cd.

it installs linux to a virtual hard drive file on your existing Windows File System.

Its the safest way for noobs to install it and test it out.

Maybe i could of manually selected a display driver too had the installation not being automated!

D'oh! Thanks for the info c!

[Smithy]

Another option would be to just use Ati tray tools instead of CCC. (It's the same program that is installed with the omega drivers.)

yep! good call!