Windows Vista is shipping

This is a bit off-topic and I'll keep the intro short. However, over 82% of visitors to Themebot are running Windows, so there is some relevance. I'll briefly discuss purchasing considerations and Linux alternatives.

The prompt for this article came when I noticed that laptops with Windows Vista preloaded have just recently become available...

Since I only buy laptops, I have been waiting to see what the options will be like when Vista first starts shipping pre-installed. Some of the reasons I only buy laptops is that they are powerful enough for anything I need to do, they are portable, they are more energy efficient, you don't need an ABS power backup system - won't lose everything you were working on if there is an electricity outage, and last but not least, they take up less space.

Windows Vista Purchasing Considerations

If you are considering buying a new laptop, I have a few suggestions. When a new version of Windows is released it is common practice to wait atleast a few months before taking the plunge. This allows time for the new operating system to receive additional hardening and bug removal after having gone through the rigors of being out in the wild. It also allows third-party software providers to update their products and make them more compatible.

In terms of hardware, there are some cool new technologies coming soon. Most notable are the backlit LED displays and hybrid hard drives. LED backlit screens allow for a brighter image and more contrast, while simultaneously decreasing energy consumption. LCD panels are one of the biggest draws on the battery for laptops and these new panels should greatly increase battery life.

Hybrid hard drives integrate flash memory with traditional magnetic based hard disk technology. Using the flash memory as a cache can improve performance and battery life on laptops. I personally am going to wait until notebooks start shipping with these technologies before buying a new one. But, if you need to buy a laptop now, go ahead and get one with Vista... and then install Linux on a separate partition ;)

Windows Vista Alternatives

Everybody knows about Mac OSX, so I'm not going to talk about OSX as an alternative to Vista. I'm more interested in Linux anyways. I keep playing with various distributions of Linux, hoping that I will finally be able to use a Linux based laptop as my primary machine. All of the distributions I've tried aren't quite there yet, although they are getting very close.

One of the big hold-ups is driver support. It can be hard to find a Linux distribution that supports all of the hardware in a laptop right out of the box. Getting Wi-Fi enabled can be particularly tricky, and the drivers are not that easy to use. Ubuntu is quite good in in terms of driver support. Over a year ago when I downloaded Ubuntu for the first time, I was amazed to see that it supported even the media player buttons on my old Inspiron 8600.

The only hard part was getting the Broadcom wireless internet card working. Other distributions I've tried that are worth checking out and will appeal to Linux newbies (myself included) are: openSUSE and Fedora. These distributions are quite polished and could probably replace Windows for most users willing to put a little time in to learn a new operating system.

With GRUB, a utility that comes with Linux installations, you can actually shrink the Windows partition that is already installed on your computer and install Linux on a new partition with a dual-boot option. Of course, read instructions for doing this and backup your critical files first.

Another hold-up for using Linux as the primary OS is software selection. Don't get me wrong, there is a huge HUGE selection of great open source software packages to choose from. However, I still run some commercial software and freeware programs that are only available on Windows. One such freeware program is SmartFTP. This is by far the best FTP program I have ever used. I also use FileZilla and CyberDuck (when I'm on my Mac), but the majority of the time I use SmartFTP and it is Windows only :( For the time being, it is just not worth the loss of productivity that would occur if I were to use the alternatives to the Windows only programs I run each day.

I wholeheartedly recommend downloading a Linux distribution and trying it out. It has been a few months since I checked in with Ubuntu and I'm downloading the newest distro as I type... with fingers crossed. Go ahead and see for yourself if you can get away with having Linux as your primary OS. You might be surprised :)

Final Thoughts

One of the new and less talked about features that has me excited about Windows Vista is better support for multiple languages. I have done a lot of word processing in Tibetan and briefly helped with the beta testing of Tibetan in Longhorn about a year ago. In Windows XP and every other OS I've used, support for Tibetan is terrible. There are jerry-rigged solutions available that work well, but are no where near optimal. Multiple font files need to be installed in order to render Tibetan, each font set is different so you can't switch between different fonts, there are display issues etc etc. With Unicode and an improved MUI (Multilingual User Interface) in Windows Vista, using multiple languages should be vastly improved.

I can't wait to see how well Vista supports various languages and play with some of the new technologies. However, I'm going to be patient about replacing my Windows laptop for now. Maybe in a few months I'll reconsider. Besides, I've got a new Linux distro to try out.

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