Moho Forum

Switch to linux!

heyvern wrote:

moshe wrote:All computers that I've seen come with Vista now. Not really by choice.

There is a choice. You can still buy new computers with XP from some vendors. Microsoft extended the availability and support for XP due to ongoing issues with Vista:

http://www.news.com/2100-1016-6210524.html?tag=yt

Most of the chip heads and computer nerds I know recommend buying a new computer with XP rather than Vista. I am aware that many Vista users have had no problems... I am only passing on information I know first hand from others who have more experience than myself. If someone who builds their own computers from scratch says I should stick with XP for now... I will stick with XP.

You could always buy a copy of XP and switch back to Vista later when it is working better.

-vern

AMEN!

Fully support this POV - Vista has no place in the Broadcast arena, and I am heartily sick of hearing people reporting "I bought Vista and now nothing works". Read the press guys! There are big issues and there is nothing in Vista that is not in XP: If you have a new hi-spec machine running XP, it will run rings around Vista in terms of speed and overall performance.

IF you need networking efficiency, look at Linux - none of Windows O/S hold a candle to the Linux files serving ability. I remember a nightmare we had in the studio with a NT server - we kept getting black frames in the video sequence - turned out Windows was throwing images away when it couldn't handle the throughput of the render farm. Redhat worked first time out of the box and never ever lost frames.

I have a dev machine with Ubuntu - there are some printer driver issues but to date. it has worked well - I use it for Blender 3D - I like the cost of both the O/s and software licence costs - free.

I am also experimenting with Flash Puppy - linux which boots off of a USB/Flash drive - Its astonishing that you can have the O/s and software on one flash memory card, carry it around in your pocket and reboot on most new PC's with your own config.

Rhoel

I'm primarily a Mac user, but I've worked on Microsoft and Unix Machines and I couldn't help but comment. A few months ago I read an article in the Financial Times. Their journalists are not big on graphics of course, but they cover a lot of tech business. In a more personal observation, a writer noted that his 3 year old daughter wondered why the computer upstairs (Vista) was so much slower than the one downstairs in the den (Ubuntu). "Daddy, is it because the cable has to go upstairs?" The Vista machine was the newer, more powerful of the two.

From what I've experienced in commercial studio settings, Mac, Unix and Linux (render farms in my case) work fine together. In comparison, Windows was cumbersome, tricky and it wouldn't share enhancements. At a trade show earlier this fall, Adobe showed off some Linux development tools. And, already you can run many 3d and 2d apps on linux, including free ones like CinemaPaint and the afore mentioned Blender. Why beat your head against the rock from Redmond?

Oh, and don't be afraid of command lines in shells. I couldn't code my way out of a wet bag, but I can do some file management in BSD Unix on my Mac - great for huge numbers of animation files. It's not tough with all the reference material out there.

Still haven't had trouble with my Vista machine... Everything still works, and after I disabled all the unnecessary eye-candy it's faster than my XP machine. I've used almost every version of Windows since Windows 3.1, including Win95, 98, 98SE, Me, 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, and now Vista Home Premium, and I still have nothing bad to report about it aside from occasionally wacky search results.

I did used to build my own computers from scratch, but I stopped doing that years ago after I realised it was cheaper to buy a system complete than the parts it would take to build one.