Ubuntu, Vista, XP, or?
Written on Mar 27, 2008 // Software.What do you run on your main computer? And why? Seeing as mine is slowly crashing I’m trying to decide what to install on the ‘new’ one. XP is the safest best because it just works. My wife only needs Firefox and Photoshop, which run on any OS under the sun so she doesn’t really care. But I’m used to a lot of nifty little programs on windows for both recreational purposes and getting work done, and do I really want to invest time in finding equivalents for all of them in linux? Plus I use linux enough at work to know it’s not answer to all prayers as some advocates claim either. And then there’s Vista. I’ve always said I’d wait until SP1… so now it’s here. Is it any good? Why would I want it? Other than eyecandy that is. Which I can get on any os as well.
Ah, decisions decisions…
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Corvo
Mar 27, 2008, 12:52Don’t you answer your own question? For ‘just works’ and the ‘ease to get apps’ I’d go for XP.
Keep things as much default as possible (needing less apps) and Ubuntu could do the job aswell.
Me? I dual-boot. Primary OS is Ubuntu and XP as second.
My laptop has Vista which I mostly use for Media Center and gaming… so, ehm…
XIII
Mar 27, 2008, 16:50So yeah… I was afraid of that answer. So all 3. And why do you use a laptop for Media Center?
Travis
Mar 27, 2008, 18:11I just stick with XP. I considered Linux but I’m not sure what I’d really need it for. I mostly just play games, type, and browse the web, so XP is great for me. I’ve never had any problems with it in the 6+ years that I’ve used it.
Origin
Mar 27, 2008, 19:53I’d say stick with XP as well. I’ve almost switched to Vista Home Premium a couple times, but every time I realized everything works perfectly fine with XP and DX10/Aero isn’t a selling point for me. Like you said, XP ‘just works’.
Ookami
Mar 27, 2008, 3:43I (mostly) follow Corvo’s setup. I use Ubuntu primarily, at home, and at work, on both my desktops and laptop. My laptop I dual-boot that with XP professional, which I use purely for gaming and sometimes DVD watching.
I find headaches with all OSes. Choose your poison. ^^
Corvo
Mar 27, 2008, 7:05The Laptop is the most powerful PC in my house and I specifically kept Vista in mind when choosing its’ setup.
Why MediaCenter? The Laptop has HDMI (to connect to my LCD-TV) and also has a build-in IR-receiver.
Anyhoos, Vista’s MediaCenter is very nice to see and use.
Gaming? … same, the hardware is the most capable ;)
To end my little commercial, the laptop I am talking about is a Dell XPS m1530.
And like Ookami says: Choose your poison.
Every OS has pros and cons and why lock yourself to a single OS?
Dual or even triple-boot for the win! :D
helixy
Mar 27, 2008, 16:48I’m running XP Pro on mine simply because I’m a n00b and I don’t really have any Linux experience whatsoever. I played with a version of it on Phix’s laptop at some point, and it intrigued me, but I don’t know if it is something I would want to work with all the time…although one day, if I’m feeling crafty, I might pick a Linux distro from random and set mine to dual boot.
My parents have Vista Home Premium on their computer, upstairs. It is fair enough to say that abhorrence is too tame of a word for my feelings about it. I mean, yes, definitely pretty, but as you said, attractiveness can be had with any OS. Vista’s just too much of a pain in the ass, even with SP1. x3…
Meh, go with XP.
ShadowTurk
Mar 27, 2008, 3:54eh, Vista SP1 fixed most things people complained about … though i’ve yet to try out Bluetooth since it always crashed on me on Vista pre-SP1.
also, seeing as my computer doesn’t want to install XP at all, even after trying to reformat, fdisk and all that stuff .. nothing … even turning of AHCP mode doesn’t do anything … as to why I prefer what I have.
another thing is that I could care less about DX-10 as not many games actually make use of it … especially the “Games For Windows” gimmick that Microsoft uses for their games designed for Vista.
croga
Mar 27, 2008, 8:03I’d say put XP on it. As said; it just works.
I’ve installed Vista on my main system last week. Primarily because I’ve finally gone legit and just bought it. It works like a charm, has a couple of nifty thingies (like the sidebar) but mostly doesn’t really add much. There’s still minor irritations here and there where Vista makes decisions on it’s on without consulting me, and I don’t agree with them (like setting folder defaults. I hate folders that don’t look the way I want them to!)
As for Ubuntu…. I still keep running into the same problems. Install b0rks. When I get install to unb0rk, the first time I run autoupdate the whole system collapses. Can’t be arsed to spend time trying to solve someone else’s fuckups.
Corvo
Mar 27, 2008, 10:20@Croga:
I always use the text-based installer (aka: not the Live-install), and that hasn’t failed so far.
The ‘auto-update b0rks my system’ was a problem I had aswell. Mainly related to nVidia drivers and Grub identifying drives differently then Ubuntu (fstab).
Proud to say that nowadays I’ve managed to config Ubuntu in away that auto-updates actually work.
B0rks usually came along with kernel updates, btw.
XIII
Mar 27, 2008, 14:53Croga, if you’re more interested in running linux as a server os give CentOs a spin, it’s basically a free Red Hat Enterprise Server without the expensive license, but with years of updates.