Microsoft Says Win7 Wins on Netbooks

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]killerb255[/nom]Flash drives should "just work" when plugged in, not require commands in a terminal window to mount it.[/citation]
I've never had that problem. They always mount automagically, the only thing I have to tell the rest of my family about is to "unmount" them before they take the drive out. Since nobody used USB stuff before we got Ubuntu, they're not used to clicking "Safely Remove" in Windows, so the whole thing is new to them anyway.

"There are a lot of great open-source substitutes for known software products out there, but think of how a high-school teenager views the world: a $100 pair of Nikes are "hipper" than a $20 pair of "Buddies" or something. Macs and PCs with Windows come off "hipper" while Linux is that nerd with a pocket protector--"
Is that really how teens think? How many of them even know about Linux? How many of them knew about Linux as it was before the major Ubuntu and Fedora releases that were so much easier to use? I think a lot of the "Linux is for nerds" stigma will wear off just because every year that passes means more people's first exposure to Linux is something that's nearly as user-friendly as Windows and works on most hardware without issues. Plus, we've got the best eye candy nowadays with Compiz (which is also getting a major overhaul to clean up and unify the projects under one roof), and it doesn't even need a Direct X 10 class graphics chip to run it.

 

[Guest]

Wow,they're pretty confident about themselves huh?
I initially bought a netbook because it was cheap, and because it had Linux.
I wanted to get away from the overloaded Windows,and learn what Linux was.
Apart from that, I wanted to play old dos games via a DOS emulator.
Something that all worked pretty fine in Linux.

XP still is the best operating system on the market for netbooks, but I guess MS went through their budget, and don't earn much with Windows anymore.

Who will want an OS that cost them money every 3 years when an upgrade is available?

 

[Guest]

Ubuntu is very similar to Windows 98 se in system response, but with more of a vista appearance.
Most Linux versions are like Windows 3.11,but with increased security.
Despite the fact that I like Linux, no Linux version is as advanced as XP or Vista, yet a lot of them are much more optimized for mini notebooks.
Multithreading, driver issues, and the much wider gamma of software available on the market on Windows machines, are strong points of Win.
Then again, they get paid for it (and outrageously much; almost $200-300 per disk).
I guess XP has brought the scientists at MS to their maximum in the amounts of flaws the OS has.

 

[mitch074]

What I do on my netbook...

I do stuff like web browsing, play 2D games, listen to music, use IMs, run my mail client - oops, past the 3 applications that Windows Starter allows (to answer the firewall and AV question: those actually run as services, only their control panels actually are applications).

Luckily I'm not constrained to 3 applications: I run a Linux-based OS. What, exactly, do I need Windows for?
- 3D games? Can't run well enough on the hardware. Actually, since most netbooks use Intel graphics, it may be easier running 3D games on a Linux netbook than on a Windows one, seeing how their respective drivers are written...
- Internet Explorer? I think I'm better off not starting here; I use Firefox, or Opera, or Konqueror, or Lynx instead.
- MS Office? Remind me, how much screen real estate does the Ribbon take? I'll use OOo's modular toolbars instead, as I can put them on the side; for a page layout, a wide screen isn't appropriate, and the ribbon forces a 2:1 ratio on usable area, when a 1:1 ratio would be better
- Aaaah - Outlook. Well, either I connect to an Exchange server with Evolution, or I (gasp) use Thunderbird or Kmail to connect to the mailbox alone with IMAP...

I do have 2Gb of RAM on my netbook; it means that I don't really need a swap file/partition, the system boots in 30 seconds (it's not SSD-based) and shuts down in 10. Best thing is, not only can I run more than 3 apps simultaneously (and virtual desktops and workspaces offset lack of screen real estate quite nicely), I have 3D desktop compositing and HD media playback capabilities without having to fork over 150 bucks to 'upgrade' first to Home Basic, then to Home Premium - and I retain ActiveDirectory connection capabilities through Samba, so I even save on the Ultimate edition - and all's well, since for the price I would have needed to pay for a 7 Ultimate netbook, I have 2 netbooks with Ultimate-like capabilities.

Last week, a friend of mine who used to say 'MS Windows is great', and who switched to Vista (he then nuanced his opinion to 'MS Windows XP is great') soon found himself pitted against these limitations:
- Windows XP, while nimble and fast, doesn't support modern features and hardware quite well, and is getting a bit, well, outdated in its design
- Windows Vista, while more modern and with a better overall design (I mean, both visually and in UI navigation), is a Pig. A big, fat, smelly pig.
- Windows 7 is, well, not here yet, and anyway nowhere in his budget since he bought the Vista laptop last year.

Guess what?

Yup, he's tinkering, quite heavily even, with Linux now.