Ubuntu vs Win7

[nishant.singh28]

I and my friend have the same laptops with him having a 7200 rpm hdd instead of my 5400rpm one. He blew up his Windows yesterday and so, we had to install Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. I blew my Ubuntu 64 bit today, had to reinstall it. His system was back to running condition in 35 min. 40 more min to get all drivers in place. 1 hour more to install all the basic software essential. And it took me 5 min to reinstall Ubuntu - I have a monstrously fast flash drive and another 10 to restore to old settings using this guide:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087
15 minutes vs 135. Ubuntu vs Windows 7. No way I'm returning to Windows. I kicked it out 6 weeks back after a blown heat sink meant I could not boot into Windows - it overheated my system while booting and shut it off. I ran on Ubuntu for 5 days before a repair and even managed to watch 720p movies without problem. Seriously...who the f*** wants Windows???

[Eisenwinter]

Seriously...who the f*** wants Windows???
Anyone who needs to use software that is available for Windows only, and does not work correctly in WINE.

[3Miro]

Anyone who needs to use software that is available for Windows only, and does not work correctly in WINE.

Except for games and some other 3D software like that, every windows program runs either under wine or VirtualBox. I don't know about Virus 7, but XP runs better under VirtualBox than on its own.

[Eisenwinter]

Except for games and some other 3D software like that, every windows program runs either under wine or VirtualBox. I don't know about Virus 7, but XP runs better under VirtualBox than on its own.
I was unable to get Doom95 to run properly under Wine.

[uncleV]

Once upon a time, at year 2001, I installed XP Professional in a half an hour clicking "Yes", clicking my time zone and after that laying in my bad and reading a book till XP installed itself.
Since that time there were no problems and the same installation lives on my computer alone with three distros of Ubuntu (8.10, 9.04 and 9.10) and doing all the things that Ubuntu fails to do.

Ubuntu is just unpredictable.

[eveningsky339]

I held on to XP only because of my flight simulator hobby. Otherwise it would be gone in a heart-beat.

[running_rabbit07]

I have flight sim 2002, I was so mad when I got it and found that the idiots made to where you can't crash the aircraft, I mean when you eff up and forget to drop your landing gear, shouldn't be thrown back into the air just to try again. They said terrorist were using it to practice. Such BS. Was still fun to fly around the world and try to land huge airliners on small desolate runways.

I must say, Windows 7 install almost as fast as Ubuntu on my machine. The Windows 7 drivers worked out of the box with my hardware, while Ubuntu required me to download and install nVidia. I prefer to run Ubuntu over Windows, but they both have their ups and downs.

[HappyFeet]

Ubuntu is just unpredictable.

How so? I find ubuntu to be rock solid. Much better than windows ever was.

[3Miro]

I was unable to get Doom95 to run properly under Wine.

I got Doom II running under DosBox, it handles old apps better than wine.

It ran in windowed mode, so I had to lower the screen resolution to see it well on a modern monitor, but it ran well never the less.

[Methuselah]

The first time I used Win 7 I got a BSOD doing something as innocuous as choosing an option from the control panel.
That's not what I was expecting from Microsoft's next great hope.

It's the same junk from a decade ago with a different coat of paint over all the cruft.
Nontheless, some people find it necessary to use it due to application or software support.

[teamjh14]

To be fair, Windows 7 has more of a chance at being a good operating system than Vista ever did. After all, Vista was the last OS built while Bill Gates was still employed (and not as talent). As an operating system, I think Windows 7 is pretty damn good.





So long as you don't pay attention to the price point, lack of support (community or otherwise), the fact that it was based on Vista, it's lack of upgrade-ability from Windows XP, it's lack of backwards compatibility for anything other than Vista, minimal innovation, etc. etc.

Fact is, most people use Windows. If'n you ask me, on the road they're on, Windows will be a distant fourth within the next 10-15 years (behind OS X, Ubuntu, and Google Chrome, of course).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbJSuduTrPs (only kind of pertinent)

[nishant.singh28]

Once upon a time, at year 2001, I installed XP Professional in a half an hour clicking "Yes", clicking my time zone and after that laying in my bad and reading a book till XP installed itself.
Since that time there were no problems and the same installation lives on my computer alone with three distros of Ubuntu (8.10, 9.04 and 9.10) and doing all the things that Ubuntu fails to do.

Ubuntu is just unpredictable.
In Windows, you blow something and then try to avoid it. You find a way around that error. I have used every and I stress EVERY version of Windows right from 3.0 to Windows 7 and they all have one thing in common-they all s**k big time. Not one of them runs without problems. In Windows you don't dare experiment. In Ubuntu, you do and mess up sometimes. I tried experimenting in Windows Vista 64 bit, Genuine Licensed copy and you know what- it blew my laptop's heat sink. Ubuntu still managed to run on my laptop. It is a genera feeling that Windows is stabler but try one experiment in Windows that blew up your Ubuntu install and see what it does. And as far as support is concerned, a Studio laptop has one of the most varied hardware I have seen among laptops. Barely a thing or two in this machine is a standard piece of hardware. Most of it comes from a variety of companies. I need atleast 10 different drivers in Windows 7. i need 1 and a small edit in the Grub configuration file.
Windows is a piece of Junk. You wanna play games, <use> Windows.

[running_rabbit07]

And the direction changes. Going to recurring son.

I recently installed Windows 7 on my machine and it installed its own working drivers for everything. I have not had one problem with Windows 7. I have broke Ubuntu many of times and each one has been a learning experience.

[caravel]

I was unable to get Doom95 to run properly under Wine.


I got Doom II running under DosBox, it handles old apps better than wine.

It ran in windowed mode, so I had to lower the screen resolution to see it well on a modern monitor, but it ran well never the less.
No need, I'm sure DoomI/II runs native and there are a few third party Doom clients as well. Doom3 also runs native.

[murderslastcrow]

Doom 2 vs Doom 3 should be the new title of this thread.

Everyone has their own experience with computers, but I think the fairest way to compare Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is to get them both on preinstalled computers from a Windows-centric and Linux-centric provider, then compare how they run.

It's good to test with Operating Systems on your current computer, and in MOST cases Ubuntu is the better choice when trying to switch it up on a newer or older computer(newer computers can't use XP due to lack of drivers, older computers can't use 7 for obvious reasons).

Still, I think when the hardware gets in the way, like it did in the old days of Linux, people start to forget the true value of the software. Either way, it is a very important and practical part of the experience.

I just hope that, someday, Windows can have a good enough driver base that we can finally compare it to modern day Linux on its merits, like the NTFS filesystem and Aero UI. </sarcasm>

[DZ*]

I'm curious, how good is the desktop search in Windows 7? Can you search reliably for contents of files of various types, and inside emails?

I think what is really missing in current Linux distributions is good desktop search facilities that would integrate with various components of the desktop environment.

Nautilus integration with tracker and beagle is disabled in Ubuntu 9.10 by default (one would have to recompile Nautilus). I really don't understand reasons for that decision.

Beagle development appears to be stopped. Tracker 0.7 sounds promising but the currently available package (0.6+) is lacking features. KDE's nepomuk/strigi integration with dolphin is also far from being really usable.

[ronniestamps]

It all depends on what your expectations and needs are. However, I look at it like this...

Every OS has it's issues, would you rather pay for those issues or have them provided for free? The choice is yours.

I prefer Ubuntu. I've been bouncing back and forth from linux to windows since 1998. Ubuntu 8.04 was the first distro that successfully allowed me to be completely windoze free. Not only am I windoze free, but my parents and my inlaws are as well. They have been for a year now and ever since I made the switch for them, I have had a lot more free time since I am not fixing broken windoze systems every 2 weeks. It's hard to teach 65 year olds the precautions for keeping a windoze install working fast and smooth.

Let's face it, 2 years of windoze use can cost the average user a bunch of money (and headaches).

Typical costs

WINDOZE
OS - $200-$500
Virus software - $50 - $150 per year
Spyware - $50 - $200 per year
Office suite - $125 - $300 (to be fair, this COULD be free)
Software - sky's the limit
Windoze 7 comes out - do it all again, and possibly buy a new computer, or at least more ram


UBUNTU
OS - free
Virus software - uh?
Spyware - uh?
Office suite - free
Software - free - MAYBE $500 tops if you have a specific need
New version - free

Applications have always, and will probably continue to be an issue with linux. But the time that you spend playing doctor on windoze can be spent doing a little research to find a work around e.g. wine, virtualbox, or software alternatives. Drivers are an issue from time to time, like nvidia drivers, but all in all, you can't complain about saving THOUSANDS of dollars in the long run.

Ubuntu is free and awesome. The biggest problem it faces is the separation anxiety that we tend to get when we are using something other than what we are used to. If we as a community could stick it out and get over the differences, Ubuntu will be even better. We can all help out, no matter our skill level... buy a t-shirt and wear it with pride! ;)

[running_rabbit07]

I remember when I was installing the update for XP that installed the desktop search. As it was doing its initial search for some reason my system was uploading to the network at the full connection speed. I immediately disconnected the Ethernet cable and started installing Linux. I must have had a virus or malware that was working with the desktop search installer, being I had no such problem after installing XP Professional.

[3Miro]

No need, I'm sure DoomI/II runs native and there are a few third party Doom clients as well. Doom3 also runs native.

Doom I is in the repos, you are right. However, I could not find Doom II.

I got Doom III to wok with wine, I did not know there is a native build.

As for Win7 vs Ubuntu:

My laptop came with XP and a win7 disk for me to install. I thought I would try it, so I read the instructions, put CD in, reboot, follow instruction and step 4 was: Install an Anti-Virus program. Step 4 is when they lost me, I got my laptop and installed a real operating system on it.

[nishant.singh28]

Cost is one good point:not a valid one in mine as I get all the software free from my college. Notwithstanding that, as far as desktop search is concerned, I used Google Desktop search in Windows and I use it in Karmic too-there is an official Linux version. As far as any system(excluding graphics) intensive application, Windows doesn't even come close to Ubuntu. I never could make MEdia Coder in Vista or & as it kept running out of CPU time or RAM but I can easily use it in Ubuntu on Wine and still use my system for basic purposes like listening to music, watching 720p movies, browsing the web and reading ebooks. The truth is, Ubuntu has a very steep learning curve for most people as we have grown up learning to use Windws and know it fairly well. But when we switch to Ubuntu and try to use it with the Windows experience, you find yourself facing a steep learning curve. If you are scred, God bless you. If you take the plunge, you are one of the many who have broken free of the tyranny od Windows adn joined the open source movement.

[DZ*]

as far as desktop search is concerned, I used Google Desktop search in Windows and I use it in Karmic too-there is an official Linux version

Yeah, I have to resort to "google desktop" too. But it doesn't integrate with the desktop. Beagle was half way there, but its development is apparently stopped. For example, Beagle "knows" about content of Nautilus notes associated with a file, or about Tomboy notes, and it can be invoked from Nautilus Ctrl-F search (that was enabled in Ubuntu 9.04, but not in 9.10). Tracker development seems to be vibrant and they are changing a lot of things there, so I'm hopeful the next stable version (0.8?) will be nice.

Anyway, I was just curious if Windows 7 provides a good desktop search facility.

[M1ke]

...Anyway, I was just curious if Windows 7 provides a good desktop search facility.

It does. As a recent Ubuntu convert I must say this is something Canonical could certainly learn from; it's very useful. You simply type the first few characters of whatever you're searching for in a box in the start menu (so only one click away at any moment), and as you type it starts pulling up results in file names, installed programs, control panel applets, everything. I found it to be the fastest way to locate pretty much anything that wasn't already reachable within two or three mouse clicks.

I haven't booted in to Windows 7 for a little while now, but I think a lot of the bad press it's getting round these parts is at best a touch unfair and worst outright FUD. Things like 5 hour installation times and BSOD's all over are not the norm. Both OS' have their strengths and weaknesses, you just have to play to them. When I can use Ubuntu to administer an iPhone/iPod Touch equally as well as under Windows, or when I can use little things like user-switching or the keyboard shortcut to turn off my laptop's wifi without resulting in a kernel panic, I might make the switch completely. Until then, I'll happily dual boot and enjoy the best of both worlds :)

[nishant.singh28]

Best of both worlds??? Well...best of luck to you sir. I tried it, but instead of best of two worlds, I got the best of one world and the worst of the other. Seriously man. I said before, I don't mind Windows cost. I get it for free anyway. And as far as problems go, I was able to find my way around Windows pretty easily. But All the bull**it about Kernel panics...I don't buy it. I have a pretty advanced notebook hardware and Ubuntu is more comfortable with it than Windows. You say you've never had a bad experience with Windows, I'll tell you what bad is. Ubuntu never needs my CPU fan much. The longest it has ever been pressed into duty is an hour. In Windows, the fan used to run nearly non stop. Ubuntu did not damage my hardware, Windows damaged two heat sinks with its stupid crashes over petty things. So if you say that bad experiences with Windows is a rare thing, think again buddy. You might be the only person saying this.

[the8thstar]

It's all about choice and personal experience. We should not force anything on anyone. And we should not GENERALIZE.

[M1ke]

In Windows, the fan used to run nearly non stop. Ubuntu did not damage my hardware, Windows damaged two heat sinks with its stupid crashes over petty things. So if you say that bad experiences with Windows is a rare thing, think again buddy. You might be the only person saying this.

I didn't say any and all negative Windows experiences were a rare thing - far from it. People have them daily I'm sure. I said that things like 5 hour installation times and BSOD the moment you touch anything are not normal.

If Windows computers routinely destroyed hardware through regular use as you seem to imply, I'm not convinced it would ever have reached a position where most of the world is still using it. And with a fault like a damaged heat sink I'd be inclined to believe the problem was a little more complex than "Windows did it". Any number of things could factor in to that, but it's nice that you haven't had the same problem with Ubuntu. Great. Keep using it! It's working for you.

I will at least concede that Windows machines do appear keep the fan running constantly, for the most part. But again, if that in itself is such a crisis computers would be melting down on a daily basis, worldwide.


But All the bull**it about Kernel panics...I don't buy it.

And I ain't selling it. Why would I make it up? It's just a quirk of Ubuntu 9.10 on my current laptop. It doesn't bother me because I turn the wifi off with a software switch instead, but it's an example of something surprising that, for me, is enough justification to keep a Windows license handy at the same time as running Ubuntu.

To each their own. If Ubuntu's working for you full-time, power to you and I hope you enjoy it!

[nishant.singh28]

I did not say it was a routine for windows to destroy hardware. THe problem in both cases was slight human error on the manufacturer's part. But windows was responsible for bringing it out. Even the company said such problems come up only if the system is used heavily...that's correctly used not misused. I never said Windows broke up my hardware with a hammer but yeah, it was the thing responsible. Laptop heat sinks are not something too fragile but since Windows decided to misuse it despite having the correct drivers for it, who is to blame? Me? For using my laptop in a way that is not very common? I do the same work on the same laptop in Ubuntu and never has my system fan run unnecessarily. I have monitored my system temperatures thoroughly on both OS's and let me tell you-I have almost 10 degrees difference in the normal hardware temperature and 5 degrees on the HDD, both internal and external. Now which is more likely to break systems? And I'm not the only one to have seen this problem. Many of my friends have seen their laptop keyboards stop working in Windows after overheating. The same laptops worked fine under Ubuntu. I've seen broken soundcards, RAM modules and the most important, corrupt Hdd's on Windows. Virus attacks, misuse of resources,etc etc...what else can haapen to kill a system?
I deeply respect your feelings if you support Windows. But 5 hour reinstalls-not too rare. My personal average from ~15 XP, ~25 Vista and 8 Win 7 installs is an impressive 4.25 hours. OK, around 5 of the XP installs were on old machines and took a little more time but the rest are for a total of 35 machines, all with 2 or more GB's of RAM and Dual Core processors. For Ubuntu, CD installs are 10 min and from my current flash drive, ~5 minutes.
And if so many systems-mostly laptops-have come to me, despite me being a 2nd year engineering student,I'm not exactly a computer newbie, am I?? I know more than enough about hardware and software to know what can do what.
And on a slightly lighter note, if I were in your place, I would never call a Windows license HANDY!! It's a handful ( hours) of trouble..:D.

[nishant.singh28]

And about BSOD's, i had one on a Virual machine today after I installed a recommended audio driver as per Sun Microsystems Manual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO4rqBmxK0o
Have seen this happen too often around me. Not on Virtualbox but on real machines. Recently, friend had one on his monster rig while playing a Flash Video.

[blur xc]

Except for games and some other 3D software like that, every windows program runs either under wine or VirtualBox. I don't know about Virus 7, but XP runs better under VirtualBox than on its own.

Nope! I got two for you right off the top of my head- Lego Digital Designer- won't run in Wine or VBox (I'm assume 3d graphics reasons) and Lightroom. While technically, Lightroom will run in VBox (Not at all in Wine), you can't access your lightroom catalog file on a your host machine from a shared folder. For some genious reason Adobe decided that you are not allowed to keep your catalog file on a network drive, and that's how VBox shares folders w/ the host. And, while not a big deal for some, is a total deal breaker for me...

Most other tings work fine in VBox. And I've got NOTHING to EVER work properly under Wine... All wine has done for me is crash my system, repeadedly...

BM

[nishant.singh28]

Wine is a problematic piece of software, I agree. Even on mine, I use MediaCodr on it and it sometimes simply goes *poof*. But I just delete .wine ad start anew.

[KEE]

I and my friend have the same laptops with him having a 7200 rpm hdd instead of my 5400rpm one. He blew up his Windows yesterday and so, we had to install Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. I blew my Ubuntu 64 bit today, had to reinstall it. His system was back to running condition in 35 min. 40 more min to get all drivers in place. 1 hour more to install all the basic software essential. And it took me 5 min to reinstall Ubuntu - I have a monstrously fast flash drive and another 10 to restore to old settings using this guide:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087
15 minutes vs 135. Ubuntu vs Windows 7. No way I'm returning to Windows. I kicked it out 6 weeks back after a blown heat sink meant I could not boot into Windows - it overheated my system while booting and shut it off. I ran on Ubuntu for 5 days before a repair and even managed to watch 720p movies without problem. Seriously...who the f*** wants Windows???Lies!! win7 is a good solid os, i cant get 9.10 to run after reboot. too many broken packages and currupted updates for my computer and for me. the recomended nvidia drivers for geforce g102m are broke. if ubuntu works for you, then your pretty lucky =)
thats just what i notice latly since new year, maybe if they can fix it up abit then...

-----------------------------------------------------------------
ubuntu devs suck

[Corners]

My FAVORITE part of windows (Vista and 7) is the Windows Media Center. This software is fantastic. It's so great, that we don't even subscribe to cable TV. We can pull in around 19 HD stations over the air, and have the Netflix and Hulu addin. The computer even records in HD over the air, and I can burn DVD's from the recordings very easily. We liked it so much, the computer is sitting in our living room next to the stereo cabinet hooked up to the 47" LCD. The TV guide in the media center downloads all updates automatically (no fee), and works slick with the HP remote.

I'm very, very new here, but I have not seen a viable replacement for Windows Media Center. Plus, I've read a bunch of people are having troubles getting their TV tuner cards working. Until then, I'll just play with Kubuntu/Ubuntu, and use the Windows machine as the media center it is.

[nishant.singh28]

Lies!! win7 is a good solid os, i cant get 9.10 to run after reboot. too many broken packages and currupted updates for my computer and for me. the recomended nvidia drivers for geforce g102m are broke. if ubuntu works for you, then your pretty lucky =)
thats just what i notice latly since new year, maybe if they can fix it up abit then...

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ubuntu devs suck
Who do you think I'm trying to please with my "LIES"!!!! If you can't get Ubuntu to work, it's your problem I've had a better success rates with Ubuntu installs than Windows, both of which I've installed in over a dozen systems. If you have a problem with installs, ask in forums. Don't simply accuse someone of lying. It's simply and utterly rude. And don't pick up my lines and call ME rude. I've written things to express my anger, not to poke an accusing finger at anyone. Wanna poke, poke someone else. Don't call me a liar.

[nishant.singh28]

I'm very, very new here, but I have not seen a viable replacement for Windows Media Center. Plus, I've read a bunch of people are having troubles getting their TV tuner cards working. Until then, I'll just play with Kubuntu/Ubuntu, and use the Windows machine as the media center it is.
OK. First of all, Welcome to Ubuntu. You might want to try Kaffeine. I've heard it's good although I've never needed it. Second, try your TV tuner card with Ubuntu once. You can always find help on forums if something goes wrong or does not work.

[Xianath]

My uncle recently had a birthday we decided we'd get him a computer. So my folks got and I got him a TFT and my brother brushed up his "old" computer (Athlon X2 4800, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 All-in-Wonder).

I don't want to start with how many problems my brother has had with this box in Windows XP. Oh man! TV-in or TV-out hasn't worked ever since April of 2006 (!!!) which is when Microsoft decided to switch driver models, ATI followed through and Catalyst 6.04 was the last working driver -- ever! That's like being stuck running a 2.4 kernel forever.

Anyway, the way to install XP on this box is to spend a week tuning stuff, then image it using Acronis or something similar, and backup the image for rainy days. Seriously, that's how easy it is.

So, knowing I had an oldie-but-goldie XP to fall back to, and not having fallen for the Windows 7 hype, I decided to give Vista a try. Two days later, four Vista versions (32- and 64-bit, Home and Pro), with no sound, no proper video support (FullHD monitor running at 1280x1024 -- yuck!!!) and of course no TV-out, I gave up on Vista and decided to try Win7.

Windows 7 is indeed slick, installs in a breeze and looks cool. But, again, no audio, no video and no TV. Only had two versions to play with (MSDN only carries 32- and 64-bit Pro) so it only took me a day trying to get it to work.

Finally I gave up and ran XP. My brother and I have always had Windows running behind a Linux firewall (OK, at least for the last 12-15 years or so) and had forgotten how short the life expectancy of a '06 XP installation would be. Seven minutes, sharp, between putting it online and it being taken down. Not even enough time to update AV definitions. It BSOD'ed, and had to be cleaned up by a rescue AV disk. Reformatted, reinstalled, installed AV, downloaded definitions manually using a live Ubuntu CD, updated the AV, then plugged the box in for updates. It updated everything (just over two hours and six reboots) and ended up having no network afterwards -- apparently the "certified" driver by Microsoft didn't work, but it wouldn't let me roll back.

Well into day five, I gave up and popped in the aforementioned Ubuntu 9.10 CD. Installed in about 20 minutes and a dozen mouse clicks (including manual partitioning due to my infatuation with XFS), booted up with full hardware support, even recognized some USB camera I picked up along the way, including its microphone.

All this time my uncle -- whose computer experience to that point had totaled about two months with XP -- was watching what I was doing and asking questions and commenting. I kept my cool because the poor guy felt really bad because of all the "trouble" I had to go through -- hard to explain I enjoy this stuff -- so I think I was objective enough to explain the issues (old hardware, poor vendor support, security, etc.) but he still found it hard to believe that the free stuff could easily do what a couple hundred bucks couldn't. Oh, and just to put his amazement into perspective -- my grandfolks and my uncle, combined, make less than a retail copy of Windows 7 (it's called recession for a reason).

Since that day over two months ago, the only thing I heard from my uncle (with a total lifetime computer experience of 2 months of XP on and off) regarding problems with his computer was when he didn't realize passwords were case-sensitive -- which he figured out on his own. He's been a happy computer user since.

So much for the perceived hardware support supremacy of Windows.

Cheers,
Peter

[M1ke]

...but he still found it hard to believe that the free stuff could easily do what a couple hundred bucks couldn't.

Good story! I discovered compiz's desktop cube effects last night and got a similar feeling. It's very easy to forget that Ubuntu's free and open source at times. Love it!

[Xianath]

Going a bit off-topic here: blur xc, have you considered iSCSI for your Lightroom catalogs? That's how I got it set up. My HTPC has Windows installed on an iSCSI target on my Ubuntu storage server. I got another target for programs/games, and a third one for my profile where I moved most of my own stuff from C: . Just think of it as / and /home :)

HTH,
Peter

[nishant.singh28]

It's very easy to forget that Ubuntu's free and open source at times. Love it!
So true...:)

[Arvie]

A few weeks ago I put Karmic on my eeepc 900 (as an aside: I have not experienced any of the issues that seem to plague other users; maybe because my needs are very basic: internet, email and office suite). Clean install was a breeze. Today upgraded my Dell desktop from Vista to Windows 7. Got it done, but it was by no means quick and easy. Main issue was that the upgrade killed my three-year subscription of MacAfee (for the Linux-only folk out there I have to explain: that's a program needed to keep viruses - nasty stuff that can make your computer seriously ill - at bay, but you probably have never heard about any of that). Got that working again as well, but I was glad I have some basic user-level computer experience. My guess is that when people say that Windows 7 is so easy to install, in fact they mean the start-up of pre-installed OEM. If in a few months time I am going to install Lucid on my netbook, I will happily say: 'Sure, let's go'. If for whatever reason I would need to re-install Windows 7, my reaction would be less sanguine.
Arvie

[nishant.singh28]

MacAfee (for the Linux-only folk out there I have to explain: that's a program needed to keep viruses - nasty stuff that can make your computer seriously ill - at bay, but you probably have never heard about any of that)
Arvie
:D All( or atlaest most ) of us are seasoned Windows users who have switched after getting too fed up with it. No need to explain Viruses to us.
And as far as a reinstall is concerned...yes truly. I made a stupid error and decided : to heck with it, just get a fresh install. My wingie broke his Windows( OS :D ) and is still searching or a fix instead of going for a tiresome reinstall.

[M1ke]

Main issue was that the upgrade killed my three-year subscription of MacAfee

You're better off for it! That thing'll bring a system to its knees. Needing AV on Windows is a bit of a pain, but there are at least solutions that won't slow your system to a crawl.

My advice? Run Ubuntu instead (of course! :D) but if that's not an option, Microsoft Security Essentials is a free, lightweight download that in my experience is a much better alternative to the bloated, paid AV apps out there. If you have to maintain a Windows installation for any reason, might as well make it as painless as possible!

[nishant.singh28]

For AV, I feel AVG Free is gr8. It's light and safe.

[nishant.singh28]

For all the Linux folk out there missing the Windows "Search" facility, try Cardapio (https://launchpad.net/cardapio).
Working perfectly under Ubuntu Meerkat x86_64

[arunb]

o if you say that bad experiences with Windows is a rare thing, think again buddy. You might be the only person saying this

You may be wrong there, I used Windows (from Win 98 to Win XP) for a long time, and there was never any serious problem with it, in fact it was (and maybe still is) quite dependable at least from stability point of view. The major problem I had with Windows is...

- The anti-virus software slows down the system
- Windows installation slow down over a period of usage, the only option is to format the drive and re-install the OS.


thanks
a

PS: I am using Ubuntu now (for at least 2 years) and have not had any serious problems.

[Artificial Intelligence]

Necromancing. Thread Closed.