I haven't run Ubuntu for about three years now-- Maybe I need to try it again- Puppy Linux was fun to play with on my usb memory stick.
Windows 8 beta, the tiles interface sucks
by moshe 22 Replies latest social current
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cuckoo in the nest
That's news to me. It might be a national or regional issue, for instance software patents don't exist in the U.K. (and the rest of Europe I think) so we wouldn't be penalised. I suspect you could circumvent the problem by downloading something like VLC media player or Handbrake (up to version 0.9.2) which include the required codecs for DVD playback.
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cuckoo in the nest
Ubuntu has changed a lot in recent years, it too has had a radical interface redesign. The latest implementation of it's "Unity" desktop is functional but also very tablet-centric. It has an apple-esque panel, or toolbar, at the top of the screen and a column of quick launch icons along the left side of the screen. Unity is unique to Ubuntu, and is also graphically resource hungry.
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GOrwell
6 year old laptop with windows 8? something does not compute. I wouldn't run XP on a 6 year old laptop ;)
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cuckoo in the nest
Don't dismiss the possibility out of hand, six years ago the PC industry was gearing up for Vista. That OS has a greater system requirement than Win7 & is more resource hungry. If your system can run Vista, or is labelled as "Vista Ready", it could well run Win7.
The only problem could be driver support, not all manufacturers released appropriate drivers for older kit to "encourage" you to "invest" in new hardware. If the generic Windoze drivers don't work or aren't present, try installing the Vista drivers. The systems are closely related enough for it to work, just as we used to use Win 2000 drivers for XP when it was first released. You might have to live without Aero Glass, but that's just eye candy.
I've had Win7 running well on an old Dell Latitude D510, admittedly an up-specced machine, but it's still a single core 32-bit processor. Maxing out the memory helps.
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moshe
I had to jump through a few hoops to get a Win7 capable video driver,(wasn't a vista capable laptop) but I found one that worked, then I posted it in on the Dell user forum for that model to help others. I really couldn't see that this Dell XPS laptop was any slower on Win 7 than it was on XP- maybe a little peppier since it was a fresh install with no Dell software bloat. I'll be switching it back to Win7 after I am done playing with Win8- the video driver that worked on Win7 doesn't work for Win8, so I an one step down from optimumal screen resolution. I was able to get the wifi adapter going with no problems. I believe for Win8 beta they are only saying you need a 1gb processor and 1gb of memory.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download
product key to activate on your computer-
DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J
Microsoft did this free beta testing for Win7 and they gave the beta testers a chance to buy a licence for , I think, $35, when win7 rolled out.
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cuckoo in the nest
That pre-installed crapware will kill you every time. My Windows-running Toshiba was riddled with it at first and was truly hamstrung by it. Once I'd flushed it out it flew by comparison. I'm about to switch Linux distribution on my other Tosh so perhaps I'll have a play with Win8 first, purely out of scientific curiosity, of course...
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botchtowersociety
I haven't run Ubuntu for about three years now-- Maybe I need to try it again- Puppy Linux was fun to play with on my usb memory stick.
I used to run SUSE with KDE, but I've been too lazy to load alternative OSes the past few years. On my primary, I usually run with what's on the machine these days (which is currently Windows 7).
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SadElder
Cuckoo: thanks for the tip. I'll check out Libre.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'm a bit tired of the 'upgrade' process with MS. Look for new drivers, get frustrated looking for new drivers, spend bucks updating favorite software programs, get irritated finding out that a special piece of hardware will not work at all under the new 'best of the best' proffered by MS.
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kurtbethel
Unity on Ubuntu has been a real hog. On my notebook that has a decent sized screen I switched from Unity 3d to 2d. It is acceptable. On my netbook, I ditched it altogether and installed the LXDE desktop, a very lean lightweight one. Happy now. I want my apps to rock more than I care for eye candy.
Now for the obligatory Nixie Pixel segment.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G7TJyZPKPo&feature=player_embedded