I just finished my test run of Windows 7. I was an early adopter of Vista 64 and had a good run, but like all things PC... crap builds up and gets bloated.
I just finished at 3am this morning a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10 and I am currently installing Vista 64 inside VM Player. I run Photoshop and Logos programs and although they will run inside Wine. I rather have a virtual to play with and thus the build.
I am liking Ubuntu so far. I looked at Linux Mint, Madriva, Suse, but finally decided on Ubuntu for the community support. I am a longtime MCSE, but a very new linux convert and I need all the help I can get.
Bill, who is larger than 2 normal people and smarter than 3, is a fan of Ubuntu as well. Folks like him and Josh are always on the cutting edge of this stuff. Always amazes me how many really smart computer folks there are on Badweb. . I am just trying to hook up another hard drive today and am confused.
The drobo looks nice, but me being the geek I am built a nas running OpenSolaris so I could use ZFS to build out storage pools. (tis also nice that I can run Mediatomb on it as well and share the media with the PS3 in the living room).
I finally deleted XP off my main workstation at home. After not having booted into it in > 1 year, I decided I no longer needed it I did install Windows 7 Beta to play with it a bit, on one of the 80G drives. I installed Ubuntu 9.04 On the other drive, and that will be my day to day OS on this box.
I am such a geek, that I tend to collect operating systems and computer languages like some people collect baseball cards I have easy access to machines here in the basement that either are running, or could boot into.
BeOS OS/2 Warp Mac OS9 Mac OSX NetBSD (my dreamcast ) OpenBSD Solaris Sparc Solaris x86 FreeBSD Various Flavors of Linux (CentOS/Slackware/Ubuntu/Gentoo)
I tend to use *nix like operating systems as I am the most comfortable in them, but do like to poke around play with them to find the one that makes me the most productive.
The reason I like Mac OS is that it is tightly integrated with the hardware, so assuming you are running it in accordance with its EULA, then generally speaking you can be pretty sure it is all going to work. With Windows they have to support every sort of Device out there, and from what I have seen a lot of Windows stability issues have been do to 3rd party drivers, and the like. I just dabble in windows every now and then, and mostly in a vm, but the newer versions appear to be getting better. I do have 3 windows Servers at the office, and they all work great, but then again they don't talk to the internet, and they don't have user accounts on them. So they are purpose built machines, just running specific applications.
Ok enough rambling out of me. Long night dealing with a daughter who didn't want to sleep , coupled with the long morning of dealing with a 10.5 hour telecom outage (WTF do you mean you didn't think it would cause any problems so you didn't tell your customers about the Maint Window?). So since it is after noon here in NY I think I can go start drinking.. .
Not around here I'm not, I'm about average, I'm sorry to say...
Mac os is a great OS for people that want a computer, not a hobby. Vista sort of falls into this category, but its like me trying to dance. I can do the same moves, but it never looks right.
For corporate systems, .NET under Windows Server 2003 is actually turning into something very useful. But only after you strip out and turn off all the consumer stuff. I imagine Windows 7 will get there as well, I doubt corporate will even ever roll out Vista.
Ubuntu is a great Unix, a nice low budget or zen like alternative to MacOS. Or a nice GUI setup for Unix guys. All the power under the hood, but with a nice simple veneer when you want it. It still suffers a bit from the "won't play youtube without getting choppy" syndrome, where popular stuff sometimes doesn't quite run right. On the other hand, it's as reliable as a rock, and very secure as well, and very easy to set up and administer.
I'm just now installing Vista on the basement machine for the first time, so perhaps my opinions will improve. That machine is a dual 64 bit CPU system, but was running XP for the longest time, really hamstringing it. Hopefully Vista will unleash it and let it run like it ought to run... and I will see what kind of software compatibility I get.
BeOS, now *that* was a classic. Never did get to play with it... but it had quite the reputation.
10 hour outage? Yeah, I think I might have mentioned that... :/
Beos was awesomely fun. Lots of great stuff in there, and it did work well. http://www.haiku-os.org/ if you are interested in looking at an OS inspired by BeOS. Yeah 10 hour outage on a 300+ phone lines (used to provide dialup internet access), and no notification since whatever they where doing wasn't supposed to cause any problems. Lets just say I was none too pleased with the tech on the phone..
My laptop is a Mac Book Pro. I like not having to worry about the OS that much, it doesn't get in the way, it just works, and the *nix geek in me can pull up a terminal and run emacs and vi. Code in ruby, or compile stuff with gcc and be right at home. Add in macports, and I can snag all my favorite utils without having to do the ./configure && make & make install dance (which I still need to do, to get Open Source Stuff to install in OpenSolaris if I am not happy with the version they have on blastwave). I know i'se a geek. What do you expect from a Person whose XB12S license plate says BSD
>>The inability of the operating system to recognise self executable files.
Wouldn't that be the next step towards computers becoming self aware, terminator, Amageddon? Best be safe, avoid the end of humanity in our time, use a dumb PC.
Vista is actually pretty cool so far. Head and shoulders beyond XP, if you have the hardware to run it, and are willing to chuck incompatible software.
I have a HP DV9000 laptop. Dual core 64bit procs. 4gb ram and 200gb hdd.
When running Vista 64 or Windows 7 64, I could leave the machine running and anytime during the day I would come back to it, it would be really hot. The palm area for typing and the fan was running all the time.
I have had Ubuntu on it with, VMPlayer running Vista 64 for almost 20 hrs and the I haven't heard the fan on once today. Also the palm area is cool to the touch.
When running Vista 64 or Windows 7 64, I could leave the machine running and anytime during the day I would come back to it, it would be really hot. The palm area for typing and the fan was running all the time.
Funny you mention that. On my macbook I have Vista Ultimate on a bootcamp partition.
Frankly the only time I boot into it is when I need to install windows updates. But as soon as I boot into windows the cooling fan ramps right up, and the temps start to climb. This is on a blackbook DC2 w/ 4gb of ram...
Since I turned off Aero things have calmed down a bit. I can live without shiny windows to keep the noise down.
Make that 203GB . . . I've taken the new HD out of the daisy chain with my Time Machine and gone direct Firewire . . .we're now showing only a mere 175 hours.
* Hardware Firewall * Software Firewall * Internet Security suite * Automatic updates * Periodic automatic security scans
The first four are just as necessary and relevant for Mac's as they are for XP macines, and for Unix machines. You need anti-virus software as well.
The periodic automatic security scan is fine, but not really necessary if you do the rest.
Court, that is still too slow. 500 gigs ought to take less then an hour or two.
Other possible sources of slowness: 1) Hard drive silently failing. 2) Non USB2.0 device hooked in the wrong place. 3) Some kind of "hidden conversion" going on during the transfer (like "helpfully" converting mp3 files to quicktime or something). 4) Broken or bad anti-malware software that insists on making sure your .jpg files are not "infected".
I did install Windows 7 Beta to play with it a bit, on one of the 80G drives. I installed Ubuntu 9.04 On the other drive, and that will be my day to day OS on this box. 
