I wonder why Vista is so hungry! And it is not only about the graphics card, even the CPU power and the RAM requirements have shot up. With the new MacBook’s I had read about 512 is new 256, but with Vista it is 1GB is new 128! I have seen some “tests” which said that Vista could be installed on a low-end machine, hopefully we would want to go beyond just installing it!
Get this:
“Even with a (high-powered graphics processor), Vista extracts performance and more battery life, so it is pretty yet costly in terms of machine resources,” said Nathan Brookwood of Insight64. “With a notebook environment when you are not plugged into the wall, you may very well want to turn off the extra graphics because your battery is going to get sucked up.”
I call this unusable.
However, the moot point to consider might be what is so exclusive with Vista that the new hardware requirements are justified. If you don’t know the answer to this question, this post is going to sound anti-Microsoft. However, I really want to find out what would be different with Vista. Vista licensing is already tougher on users, rather inconvenient; without convincing the user about the money to be spent it might end up in the shelf.
I am running a 3D desktop on my Dell Inspiron 700M that has an embedded Intel video card with 855 chipset with products from different sources - Kubuntu, AIGLX and Beryl.Agreed that getting all of them to work together was not straight forward and required some amount of poking around. However, considering that Vista will have everything from Microsoft, shouldn’t all the components be tightly coupled that give better performance, or at least run on the same hardware as this!
Microsoft should demonstrate differences between Vista and its competitors to bring out its USPs rather than just listing its features everywhere. Showing what features consume so much power can help. Until then it will be just a speculation if its the wrong design or the wrong implementation or the bad marketing effort and end up in blaming Microsoft.
November 9th, 2006 at 5:32 am
hey Abhijet,
Did you install Vista on Dell 700m. I have got Vista RC2 beta from MS. But haven’t installed on my 700m, thought the graphic card in 700m is real bad. Did you try out? Just let me know. If it works, I wanna give a shot too.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Hi Sankeerth,
I had installed one of the Vista RCs on 700m, but it hogged the machine a lot. It did install fine, but was terribly slow. When I learnt that it required a AGP, I decided to leave it at that go ahead with Kubuntu.
November 25th, 2006 at 10:48 am
[...] The two differences I found was using Beryl session type which involved starting Beryl before KDE, and downloading the compatible Linux headers. So I am back with my 3D desktop on my Dell Inspiron 700m with embedded video card, still scoring over Vista. [...]
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
[...] Lorelle asks whether you need Windows Vista. She points to a Wired article which claims Why You Don’t Need Vista Now. I will not use it because I have not found any reason to upgrade, apart from bullying by Microsoft. I think a lot of people might want Vista, I am not sure if they need it. In fact with Vista I will need to spend more to get a newer hardware, that too for better graphics, not functionality. For my family who are used to Windows, the home laptop will stay at XP, and probably might get upgraded to Ubuntu later! I will stick with Kubuntu on my laptop. If you need more convincing read 25 shortcomings of Vista (via E@zyVG). After all this if you still want to continue, reading Amit Agarwal’s different avenues to grab a free Vista copy might bring relief to your budget. [...]
December 25th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
[...] A lot of people who know me, and even some readers feel that I am anti-Windows. I am not, though I have not taken any explicit efforts to correct the perception. I am against the strategies and decisions that Microsoft takes based on their businesses without thinking about the users, which probably poses me as a anti-Windows guy. What I usually do is recommend open source and free software over commercial ones, especially over pirated copies. I sincerely believe that there are a lot of quality open source projects which offer freedom and sometimes lower cost over the commercial counterparts. Regarding Windows , I was, in fact I am, a big fan of COM, Visual Studio and template libraries like ATL and WTL. I liked XP and used it quite extensively, but I am not sure I can say the same about Vista, I fail to see value there. I still use Windows, mostly for work reasons, where I use some software which is extremely good. As a first effort to say that I am an open source advocate but not anti-Windows, here is the list of softwares I use actively on Windows: [...]
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:16 pm
[...] I think even if the exploit scenario might seem fabricated, this fundamental flaw can help in allowing an attack targeted at an organization. One cannot rely on the assumption that the scenario is difficult, especially with quality of the peripherals increasing everyday. I think it is a flaw, and a critical one. Good thing is that Microsoft has acknowledged it and hopefully they will eliminate it soon. For some this can be a reason to not install Vista. I am still looking for one to install it. [...]
April 19th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
[...] of the price, it is because of the other two biggies - freedom and quality. Windows licensing is not exactly friendly, it tells the user more about what he/she cannot do than what he/she can do with it. The quality is [...]