water cooler :: Vista Beta Testing



Out of curiosity I signed up for Vista Beta testing the other day. I downloaded the 3.1 gig  :O  download and burned to DVD. I will say they've learned how to format because formatting the partition took little time at all and the install didn't seem any longer than an XP install even though the size is much bigger. It's recommended that it be installed on a 15gig partition but I put it on an 8gig since I'm not really planning to install much else to it. There is alot of eyecandy but nothing that has really jumped out at me yet. My system has a gig of ram and a 256mb nvidia card so it ran decent. No idea how it would run on a lower spec machine. IE 7 has tabbed browsing, MAN why didn't Mozilla think of that?!  :;):

Overall it was OK but that's a heck of a big download to get hardly any apps as opposed to a similar knoppix 5.0 download that leaves you wondering if there are any remaining open source apps they could have possibly missed putting in the DVD! :)

Just curious if anyone else here has tried it (or would admit to it) I was curious and one day I'll be cleaning viri and spyware from it so thought I might as well give it a test drive :)

Chris
So you're saying that Microsoft finally managed to do in an 8GB space what DSL does in 50MB ?? ???  :O
Nah, DSL has more apps.  :D
clivesay you are dead on about knoppix 5.01. I have the DVD ver & the CD ver, and they are both loaded with applications, the DVD is like the super giga wal-mart of OS's. Almost too much there to digest. i am running 5.01  on my main desktop, and DSL on my toshiba laptop. i really can't imagine what winblows has to offer me. besides there will be the usual glut of "upgrades" that won't be backward compatible, leaving millions in the lurch. i guess if i had $88 billion i would screw everybody too........

torp
I have d'loaded the Vista beta and burned DSL 2.3 to a disc and connected to the net and posting this. I'm just giving it a test drive and thought that while it was available that I'd install MS Office 2007beta and also Adobe Photoshop CS2(30 day trial) and then went and got virus protection from Trend Micro for the Vista beta that's good until OCT 31st.

I have noticed that Vista has functions and looks that have been available in Linux for a while,tabbed browsing,transparent windows,"gadgets" etc but they have renamed some features so as to appear as if they are original ideas from MS.

There are security features that enable admins to lock down a system to thwart a person from booting from cd or usb. Windows "Defender" which was called Microsoft Antispyware now regularly "phones home" to let the powers that be know what software you are running tied into "DRM" one would presume.

Personally I think this will be a time for first time users of computers to go with Linux as a cost saving measure and it is more fun to use and you learn a lot along the way.

Oh by the way before the betas time runs out there will be some interesting hacks surface. If Vista's main selling feature is just "bling" then there really is no point in upgrading. Just like any distro you need to try it before you buy it and then decide if it's worth committing to.

Phil
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