What are people's thoughts on Vista? I know it's a little while away yet, but it looks to be a better platform for gaming.

Oh and is it just me or is the interface very linux?

the whole thing will be very linux

Well that's a good thing. I will be putting it on my laptop if all goes to plan.

It's very graphic intensive from what I understand, which will probably push graphic card prices down (Or up. ). I fear for anyone trying to use it without the minimum specs though.

I hear it's going to put an end to software piracy though, so um.. I'm not -that- interested.

LOL I wouldn't believe anything about putting an end to piracy. There are some very creative and talented people out there who have gotten around these solutions before.

But anyway, I've read the system actually taylors it's graphic intensity to the hardware on your computer.

First: Vista is meaningless. It will come out obsolete (Like Wine's 1.0 version, incidentally) and without backwards-compatibility, which means that Microsoft will be forced to support XP for up to three or four years after Vista launches, possibly more. Early adopters of Vista will find themselves running back to XP to escape the bugs, and XP users will find themselves forced into buying Vista (Microsoft's original business plan, incidentally) because all cool new games are being released for the new DirectX (Or, more likely, nobody will be arsed to use the new DirectX as OpenGL develops further and just gets better; it'll probably be ported and work sactisfatorily on Vista before Microsoft has released a version of DirectX that can be called stable.

Second, no, the interface isn't Linux-y. Linux can simulate that kind of transparency (It has been doing that for a while, actually. Just like every single 'new' feature in Vista is copied from the Unix word or already exists in the form of free applications for Windows XP.) but Linux window managers (How we Unix people call the software layer that, surprisingly, manages windows, which is in fact independent from the operating system, GUI libraries, and applications, which is why the Unix/Xorg GUI model is infinitely superior to the Windows one, which is an ugly crock), in general, are efficient, fast, and highly customisable (Or at least two out of three, which ain't bad). Windows Vista isn't efficient, isn't fast, and isn't highly customisable; it's a slow-moving piece of gratuitous eye-candy that can only be replaced by the old pre-Vista window styles, which is no improvement whatsoever. I predict six months before the first alternate GUI shell for Vista comes out as a beta.

Die, Gates, Die.

I'm not much interested in Windows Vista, but I think it won't bring anything 'revolutionary', it will just force people to upgrade their computers. Just like Windows XP has nothing I didn't have in 2k, really.

And, better platform for gaming? Maybe if you have really high-end pc.

I also read something about Vista not supporting advanced hardware sound processing (DirectSound only). Bye bye EAX Advanced HD. Way to go!

Some comprehensive details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista

Direct X has surpased OpenGL when it comes to gaming support by coders, so I think they have the superior technology right now when it comes to graphic support.

I never liked the whole "Linux is superior" crap that I hear. It might be the choice of geeks who think complining is really fun, but the whole point of computers IMO is that you shouldn't have to have a tech background to run it on a day to day basis.

You don't have to compile anything nowadays to run Linux on a desktop pc. It's getting more and more user friendly.

MS Windows GUI is prettier and more solid than any window manager for Linux, no matter how you customize it.

And thanks for the links, I'm gonna look what's the commotion about.

You like the Windows XP (Not going to argue about Vista, Vista is quite pretty but after ten minutes your eyes start to bleed and you wish you could change what the damn thing looks like) look more than Linux? You like the big blocky window title bars and ugly garish colours?

And yes, I am right now using a Linux system in which only some exoteric bits of software were compiled by me; everything else, including all trivial and not-so-trivial applications (Web browser, text editors, office suite, pretty much all the functionality Windows provides except gaming) are here, I got them in binary packages, I install them with a single command to download, unpack, and install all of it at once, they're free, and more stable than Windows software. The whole "Linux is for geeks who like compiling stuff" mentality was dead in early 2001, no matter how much the Gentoo crowd tried to unnaturally reanimate it.

Seriously. If Microsoft was a car vendor, FOSS hackers would be people offering fully armoured, state-of-the-art combat tanks complete with military cameo for free right across the street. And people would still be buying the ugly little SUV Microsoft sells.

Windows classic theme looks (and behaves) better than Gnome or KDE.

Oh, and here's what I think of Vista's features:

Aero: Cheap eyecandy.
Search: Probably won't have more functionality than Google desktop search. Definitely won't have the funcionality of a simple Gnome applet.
Windows Mail, Calendar, DVD Maker: Monopolistic attempt at killing third-party vendors of equivalent applications. Cheap eyecandy.
WinSat, Windows Backup, Windows Collaboration: Interesting concepts, but knowing Microsoft, they'll botch them.
Internet Explorer 7: Tabbed browsing and an RSS reader, Oh My!
Media Player 11: ...Will have its arse soundly kicked by iTunes for Windows Vista.
User Account Control: It's called multi-user mode and Unix had it since the 70's. Except this one puts more molly-switches to make everything 'safer' by forcing users to jump through hoops even if they have consciously made the decision to use an administrator account.
Protected-Mode IE: Just dump ActiveX altogether. Seriously, what kind of website nowadays uses ActiveX that isn't malicious?
Windows Firewall: Still won't make it nearly as secure as competing operating systems, although I expect Vista to be safer for two reasons: First, Microsoft has finally come to its senses and thrown a lot of Windows' early design out the window for being, generally, bad. Second, crackers will take a while to catch up with the new bugs.
Session 0 Isolation: Again, Unix has had this since the 70's.
Windows Defender: If Windows wasn't such a crock in the first place, this wouldn't be necessary.
Parental Controls: Mumble mumble. You don't have time/energy/can't be arsed to properly raise your children, so you leave it to, of all people, Microsoft? This should be grounds for being accused of negligence.
Digital Rights Management: Don't even get me started on how wrong this is.
Symbolic links: Unix has had this since the 70's.

I'm not saying Windows Vista isn't going to be an improvement, far from that, it's just that it'll improve not by adding new features, but rather by chopping off some of the useless and dangerous cruft Windows has accumulated since the early 90's.

Behaviour is a matter of personal preference; I personally hate click-to-focus and like raising my windows only through the titlebar, but it's The Right Way Of Doing It, it's just my way of doing it. I can't really use Windows effectively anymore because I feel cramped with only one desktop. KDE and Gnome can be easily configured to reproduce the Windows behaviour (In fact, click-to-focus and single-click launch are the default settings). However, when was the last time you saw a screenshot of KDE or Gnome? 1995? And even if you think they're still ugly, at least look at Enlightenment, which is the most eye-candy-tastic of Unix window managers.

For those who think "linux is for geeks that speak binary and want to compile everything":
http://www.ubuntu.com/

You can install it in less time than windows, from a single CD, without bothers, and it comes with nifty windows and everything windows can offer by default. And an application installer (packet manager) with search.

Basically, all that windows can offer but free and without virus.

And it installs all applications along with the OS... No spending time installing an office suite, your favourite web browser, your favourite media player, graphics editing software, MUD client, IRC client, and so on.

update.microsoft.com


Last time I saw Gnome was when I installed Ubuntu Dapper Drake, it was flight 6 I think. Less than month ago.
As for KDE, few months ago, but I saw some new screenshots.

It's just that they tire me, maybe it's just the addiction to The Right Way of MS.

Whatever, de gustibus...

You're saying that's not malicious?

For those who're not anti-MS crusaders, it's not.

Vista strikes me as having a lot that is unnecessary, especially in the gui, that's going to push up the requirements a lot. I mean... 512meg ram minimum, with 1 gig recommended... requirements are going to be akin to what you'd expect for gaming, not for word processing. And a 3d desktop is just uneccessary.

Ultimately yes, Vista will be a requirement for high end gamers. With the new games coming out supporting DirectX10, you'll need Vista simply for it. Those games being developed specifically for Vista will also mean you need to have your hardware compliant. HDCP compliance for your monitor AND graphics card. It's gonna be a pain in the arse indeed.

It's going to be inconvenient, expensive, painful, and it's going to hurt PC gaming. I don't think any Vista games will be released until Vista is used by a good portion of the userbase; EA, Valve, and others realise forcing their customers to upgrade is bad for business. Vista itself will also probably have a significantly worse overhead than most operating systems, slowing down gaming by virtue of it being the lumbering, cobbled together monstrosity it is.