My experience with Vista is a bit limited. My wife has a Dell Laptop that came with Vista already installed. She does not make many changes to her system and is good about installing security updates as needed. She is not a Power User in any sense of the term, so her experience may be uncommon. She has had no problems with her system, and for that I am grateful since it is me who resolves any troubles she encounters in her use of her computer.

As for myself, I use Mandriva Linux as my day to day production OS. I have been a Linux user since about 1998. I used Linux as a secondary OS for several years (in a dual boot), and gradually found myself using Linux more and Windows less (Windows versions include Win98SE and WinXP) until I moved my Windows installation to a VM under Linux about a year ago to avoid the need for a reboot to get to Windows when friends who still use it (Windows) need help.

No Linux distribution is a Windows replacement. OS-X is not a Windows replacement either. While Linux has more in common with OS-X than it could ever have with Windows, it is also not an OS-X replacement. Linux is an Operating System developed on what I believe to be a singularly elegant philosophy: you build a program to do one small thing very well, then string your programs together to do bigger things. OS-X is based on BSD, a Berkley UNIX derivative which shares this developmental philosophy. Windows, on the other hand appears to be developed with the philosophy that you make everything a part of the OS (essentially making the OS one big thing) to get better performance. Since Microsoft can not exert direct control over the programming practices of all those who develop Windows software, this philosophy has led to system instability issues as well as a history of security issues. Since Windows is a proprietary OS, the number of eyes looking at the code is small and security patches can take months to hit the streets. Further, rather than rethink their development philosophy, Microsoft has added band-aids to the Windows security infrastructure such as the Security Agent that continually pops up to confirm you wanted to run the program you just started, and the Security Center that warns you that your computer may be at risk because your anti-virus software is out of date, but includes no facility to automatically run an update. Lets ignore the need for anti-virus software in the first place or the fact that there is no such software included with the OS. We will also ignore the lack of root kit detection even though Windows can be vulnerable to such an attack since moving to the NT platform with WinXP.

My move to Linux started as the result of my curiosity and was fueled by my dislike for much of how Microsoft has done business over the years. Today I use Linux because it meets my needs. Even more that that I like the elegance of the Unix philosophy. I also like the Open Source philosophy because it is all about freedom. I am free to view and change the source code to meet my needs if I choose to do so. I have the freedom to decide what gets installed on my computer if I so choose. I can also configure all aspects of my OS to look, feel and work as I want it to. I do not have to make all these choices if I do not want to, but I have the freedom to do so.

In the end, I choose Linux because it works for me, it is about freedom, and I like the development philosophy. I do not use Windows because it does not work for me, I dislike the development philosophy, and I dislike the Microsoft business model.

As for OS-X, I think Apple missed the boat when they chose to keep the architecture closed, The original Apple design was outstanding (putting the BIOS, then the OS then device drivers at the bottom of memory, finding the top of RAM and backfilling video memory from there so all memory in between was for programs resulting in no need for real or protected mode operation). If Apple had opened their architecture so others could develop both firmware and software for the Apple (then the Mac), the history of computing would be very different. Sadly, (in my humble opinion) Steve Jobs arrogance prevented his ultimate success. His closed architecture may have let him keep full control over how firmware and software interacted, resulting in greater stability. It also made the system significantly more expensive than a PC. Since TCO is important to business, the PC became mainstream with Apple a distant second.

I’ll be interested to hear about your conversion to OSX – I think I’d try Linux before that. Perhaps you are getting some Apple dollars?

You know I have had my share of problems with Vista – as you read on my blog last night! But honestly, those problems are few, far between, and almost always caused by something I did – like “tweaked” a setting or two.. ahem – AND I’m running it on an OLDER laptop that is not supported by the manufacturer for Vista. Overall, the system has been MUCH more stable than when I was running XP! And that’s not BS. I normally run for weeks at a time w/o out any problems at all! So, in summary, I believe that you are having problems with Vista, and I believe that most of them are either because you have incompatible hardware, drivers (or both), and/or you have been being your typical “power user” self and tweaking the hell out of it!

Perhaps you should take a look at BlackViper’s Vista tweaking page (http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm) and disable some services (if you haven’t already) that are not needed or used by Vista.. Speaking of which, I need to do that too, even though my system is pretty solid!

Later!

BlackWolf

Maybe your machine just really doesn’t like Vista… I see a lot of people using it with zero problems lately… Seems to be the power users that run into the most problems.

The problem with Windows Vista is one that has been with us since Windows 95:

– People either installing crap-ware onto a Windows system
– Running the latest tweak to change something that was designed at the onset to be something that should NOT be changed
– Forcing Windows to use drivers and / or software that were not designed to work with the current OS Release (ex. hacking .msi files to change the parameters relating to supported OS releases for said .msi file)
– PC Manufacturers installing crap-ware onto new Windows boxes.

Chris – remember those nice, shiney x64 briefcases we all got at the XP x64 Launch at WinHEC 2005? I’m running Vista 32-bit on that very same AMD CPU and Video Card we got from Microsoft, and Vista clearly runs circles around XP x64; Yes, I’m running Vista 32-bit because of driver issues…but the very machine I’m composing this post with has had an uptime of over 2 weeks (not counting the last Tuesday Update) with zero crashes, stalls or BSODs.

FYI: I am not a Microsoft Apologist – I sided with ChrisP when he took Microsoft to task about Win9x leftovers in Vista (Font Install Dialog Box and other issues) during the Vista Beta, so I’m not going to always stand-up for Microsoft. With that being said, Am I or my system somehow blessed in such a way that I don’t have all of the problems that other Vista users who have posted here are experiencing? Since I installed the Vista 32-bit RTM and applied all of the updates (minus the nVidia GeForce and Forceware Chipset upgrades) I have had ONE BSOD – and that was totally my own fault because I messed-up the EBC settings for dual-boot.

Am I or my system “blessed” with stability? One can only imagine…

PS. ChrisP “PC LOAD LETTER” is an error displayed on HP LaserJet Printers (starting with the LaserJet II and ending with the LaserJet 3 & 4 Series printers, indicating that the Paper Cassette needed to be LOADed for LETTER-size paper)

Scott