[mdlug] First impressions of Vista

[Ingles, Raymond]

 As I'd noted, my wife was unsatisfied with OpenOffice and Crossover. It's
possible she could be persuaded to get used to either, but in the interest
of marital harmony (arguing with pregnant women can be problematic) we
picked up a Windows computer for her. In particular, the cheapest possible
desktop Dell offers, the "Dimension C521".

 The specs are all right - an AMD Sempron running at 1.8GHz, 80GB disk,
GF 6150 graphics. But since it would come with Vista Home Basic, I bumped
it to 1GB of RAM. Ironically, at least on paper the specs are roughly
equivalent to our current Linux machine. I bought that almost exactly four
years ago; it seems that nearly equivalent power is now available for ~20%
of what I paid then.

 The good:

  1. It's *much* quieter than the old machine. Almost silent.

  2. Once the data was copied (see below) Thunderbird and Firefox
     were easy to migrate. (I'm not *stupid*; I've hidden IE7 from
     view.)

  3. Maybe I'll put a couple Windows games I have on it. I kinda liked
     Tron 2.0 and NOLF2.

 The bad:

  1. I am *very* glad that I added the extra RAM. Vista is a pig. It's
     even more sluggish than I anticipated. I haven't booted a Linux
     live CD on it yet for direct comparison, but it takes quite a bit
     of time to boot, to log in, to switch users, etc. Why is a 1GB
     machine swapping when not running anything in particular?

  2. Vista UAC is not *quite* as annoying as anticipated, but pretty
     close. It shows up for program installation, which I expected,
     but it *also* shows up for apparently *any* file operation, like
     just deleting files. First it warns you that you'll need to confirm
     the action, then it asks you to confirm it, then it asks if you
     really want to delete the file. (Then, of course, if you *really*
     want it gone, you have to empty the "Recycle Bin", too.)

  3. The interface has changed, again, and not for the better. Took
     me a web search to figure out how to see hidden files and full
     extensions. (How can I find Thunderbird's profile if I can't see
     the directory it's in?)

  4. I couldn't connect to the Linux box via Samba to migrate the
     data over. Not sure what the deal was there, but Cygwin and
     scp to the rescue. Got the data copied over in reasonable order.

  5. It came with a bunch of cruft from Dell that I've managed to
     delete, but it was annoying. I still don't think I have all of it
     cleared out yet, but given how slow Vista is every bit helps.

 The indifferent:

  1. It has no PS/2 ports. I wanted to keep my favorite keyboard (where
     you can mechanically swap the functions of Caps Lock and Control)
     with the Linux box anyway, so the fact that it wouldn't work with
     the new machine was just fine.

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles                                    (313) 227-2317

 "Always make sure your projectile is harder and heavier than
         what you are shooting at." - Howard Tayler
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