Windows XP Lives, Thanks to Linux

[w1z4rd]

"Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols puts his thumb on what really happened to spur Microsoft's change of mind on sparing Windows XP: The smashing success of Asus and others' Linux-powered UMPCs and mini-notebooks caught Microsoft completely by surprise. It turned out people wanted inexpensive, hard-working Linux laptops rather than overpriced, underpowered Vista PCs. If anyone thought this was a flash in the pan, that Asus just hit it lucky once, they haven't been paying attention. Intel is putting big bucks into its Atom family of processors, which have been designed for UMPCs, or as Intel would have it, MIDs. Intel has encouraged both the computer makers and the Linux companies in its Moblin initiative to run desktop Linux. The Linux companies have picked up on this. Canonical, Ubuntu's dad company, has come up with an UMPC-specific version of Ubuntu 8.04, the latest version of this popular Linux distribution, for Intel Atom UMPCs. At Computex, by my count, more than a dozen new UMPCs were announced both from vendors you've never heard of and from big name companies like Acer and Asus. You can also expect to see Dell releasing its 'mini-Inspiron' with Ubuntu by June's end."

http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/04/1746237

 

[killadoob]

well wizard im with you on this one man

im tired of hearing how ppl are running vista on a celeron with 512/1 gig memory

microsoft are forcing vista on the slowest laptops knowing full well its going to run like crap

 

[Turiko]

I've basically had to remove Vista from countless customer machines, customers who were so upset with the new OS's poor performance they paid happily for a license for XP

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Just goes to show that customers does not always want something glitzy and "feature-packed"...

 

[Tux]

My personal box at work an ancient AMD with OpenSuse10.3/KDE on it and it outperforms these newfangled Vista PCs by miles

 

[kronoSX]

My personal box at work an ancient AMD with OpenSuse10.3/KDE on it and it outperforms these newfangled Vista PCs by miles

seeing is believing

 

[killadoob]

Just goes to show that customers does not always want something glitzy and "feature-packed"...

yes they do but when it runs like crap the glitzyness of the OS turn into a headache

vista should not be run on any low end laptop at all

im not quite sure how microsoft with discontinue xp with vista not being able to be run on the lower end pc's

 

[LazyLion]

Microsoft made a massive blunder with Vista. Not anticipating the market direction, they were still (as usual) stuck in the past. The trend had been for the last 15 years for processors to grow in strength and the OS to grow to match. But with the recent side-branching of processor development, people are now looking for software that runs better on their EXISTING hardware, as well as portability.

What Vista should have been, small secure tight and highly customisable is everything that Vista was not. It is in fact a bloated rewrite of XP that is not even as good as XP. Lots of eye candy, but no actual new achievement.

Windows 7 will be Microsoft's make it or break it release. If they drop the ball now (and I am actually kinda hoping they do), they will only be a shadow of their former selves five years from now.

 

[zamicro]

I just wish the linux support for pda's was better... And on my current desktop I am quite happy with XP. Will give vista a chance on the new desktop I am building.

 

[alloytoo]

I've deployed a few Asus R2H Origami tablet PC's into our sales force.

The first ones were XP tablet edition, and the last couple were Vista.

Asus kindly increased the memory and Harddrive for the Vista machines.

They still run like dogs compared to the XP ones. Not only that but the E220 modems supplied by Vodacom don't like Vista and even with the latest upgrade only work with a great deal of luck.

anyway suffice it to say One vista machine became a XP machine today.

NB: Please note microsoft, you may have "sold" an oem copy, but it doesn't mean you have a Vista user.