[daros]

[Leonardo]

dumb question... how do you guys build your pc when Windows XP cost like $200

Might as well buy the pc already built

[thxraph]

dumb question... how do you guys build your pc when Windows XP cost like $200

Might as well buy the pc already built

already built ?? please, no, never again ^^

the question is quite easy to answer, i only have 1 work computer, this one has its win license, the other ones (old work computer) are all running linux (free) to make some task i ask them for : database server:mysql (XP3200 64b), webserver:apache (XP3000 32b), media center/network media streamer: mythTV/vlc (xp2000), dataserver: samba (AMD800+RAID5 hardware card), rooter : ipcop (PII 300MMX)... some kind of recycling ^^ no need of a beast to make a router, actually, the PII is too powerfull for such a task, but you know, what can you make with such an old thing ?...even better, i bought it 40€, that is ~35USD, so it is cheaper than a crapy rooter & awesomly powerfull... linux is just scalable.

so what you need is 1 win license for each work computer, taking in count that vista suxs, your XP license still has lots of day before being obselete. The free OS handle the rest. Even if someone offer me a windows license for any of them, i'll stick to linux, so f*****k better. actually you made me feel that i havent restarted my old PII for about 8monthes, last time it was an electricity crach on the neighboors, and believe me it working all the time with all its nice little 64mb of ram, can windows do that?

Raph

[Leonardo]

I have never seen or run linux

Only the pcs at work has xp... My old p4 at home have win2000.

and my fiance wants xp because the mp3 player that I got her onlyloads songs in winxp computers

[seco7]

Has MS addressed the OGL issues with Vista yet? How could they think that people would be satisfied running through DX in emulation mode. That's my guess on the speed differences (getting back on topic). Also, were these done with the bling bling UI (Aero?). I assume they were at that speed.

[aitraaz]

Iceberg?

[Leonardo]

looks more like a a big boom!

[ivox3]

More like resurection...

[markps]

For the patient one here is a great explanation on how the new DRM features that were imposed from Hollywood in order for Vista to access HD content are making Vista SO SLOW.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... _cost.html

A great point he makes is that now, the video board and other internal parts will have to license the certificate to talk with Vista, and this license is renewed EVERY YEAR. If they don't renew, it could eventually stop working. That's the dumbest idea ever created by Microsoft.

-Mark

[markps]

Here is his explanation on how Vista will eventually get rid of Linux altogether.

"Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support

In order to prevent the creation of hardware emulators of protected output devices, Vista requires a Hardware Functionality Scan (HFS) that can be used to uniquely fingerprint a hardware device to ensure that it's (probably) genuine. In order to do this, the driver on the host PC performs an operation in the hardware (for example rendering 3D content in a graphics card) that produces a result that's unique to that device type.

In order for this to work, the spec requires that the operational details of the device be kept confidential. Obviously anyone who knows enough about the workings of a device to operate it and to write a third-party driver for it (for example one for an open-source OS, or in general just any non-Windows OS) will also know enough to fake the HFS process. The only way to protect the HFS process therefore is to not release any technical details on the device beyond a minimum required for web site reviews and comparison with other products.

This potential “closing” of the PC's historically open platform is an extremely worrying trend. A quarter of a century ago, IBM made the momentous decision to make their PC an open platform by publishing complete hardware details and allowing anyone to compete on the open market. Many small companies, the traditional garage startup, got their start through this. This openness is what created the PC industry, and the reason why most homes (rather than just a few offices, as had been the case until then) have one or more PCs sitting in a corner somewhere. This seems to be a return to the bad old days of 25 years ago when only privileged insiders were able to participate.

Elimination of Unified Drivers

The HFS process has another cost involved with it. Most hardware vendors have (thankfully) moved to unified driver models instead of the plethora of individual drivers that abounded some years ago (in the bad old days it used to be necessary to identify individual device types and download specific drivers for them, something that was more or less impossible for non-geek users). Since HFS requires unique identification and handling of not just each device type (for example each graphics chip) but each variant of each device type (for example each stepping of each graphics chip) to handle the situation where a problem is found with one variation of a device, it's no longer possible to create one-size-fits-all drivers for an entire range of devices like the current Catalyst/Detonator/ForceWare drivers. Every little variation of every device type out there must now be individually accommodated in custom code in order for the HFS process to be fully effective, resulting in a re-balkanisation of drivers that have only just become available in a clean, unified form in the last few years. This is more a concern for device vendors and driver developers than users, since they don't see any of this artifically-created extra complexity. As far as the user is aware it's still a “unified” driver since the internal re-balkanisation isn't visible in the driver bundle (although the “unified” driver suddenly becomes a lot larger). The indirect cost to the user (longer driver development cycles and higher cost) is mostly hidden from them.

If a graphics chip is integrated directly into the motherboard and there's no easy access to the device bus then the need for bus encryption (see Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption below) is removed. Because the encryption requirement is so onerous, it's quite possible that this means of providing graphics capabilities will suddenly become more popular after the release of Vista. However, this leads to a problem: It's no longer possible to tell if a graphics chip is situated on a plug-in card or attached to the motherboard, since as far as the system is concerned they're both just devices sitting on the AGP/PCIe bus. The solution to this problem is to make the two deliberately incompatible, so that HFS can detect a chip on a plug-in card vs. one on the motherboard. Again, this does nothing more than increase costs and driver complexity.

Further problems occur with audio drivers. To the system, HDMI audio looks like S/PDIF, a deliberate design decision to make handling of drivers easier. In order to provide the ability to disable output, it's necessary to make HDMI codecs deliberately incompatible with S/PDIF codecs, despite the fact that they were specifically designed to appear identical in order to ease driver support and reduce development costs."

[-Adrian]

Maybe we can import open hardware from china some day, they're quite fond of Linux and would rather see their money circulate within the country than go to Redmond. Just a thought...

[jdp]

@-Adrian: I was about to post almost the same. they already are producing most of the chip hardware, and as far as I know they are working on their own linux platform.

[aitraaz]

they're quite fond of Linux and would rather see their money circulate within the country than go to Redmond.

you sure?

[-Adrian]

I didn't do a thorough investigation, i base it on the occasional tech article on that topic. Just playing with ideas on how it might go, nothing solid

[Maximus3D]

Tonight was the night i for the first time got to have a nightmareish experience of Vista. Oww.. not much to get impressed by there, only thing good about it is DirectX 10, the rest is pure crap! sparklingly shiny and transparent stuff, that's about it. And one hell of a super-paranoid security system built into Vista. You have to leftclick yourself to retirement before you get to install some small simple piece of software. Grr!

No i do not like Vista, not at all

/ Max