I’ve had a love-hate (more like, “moderately friendly/utterly despise”) relationship with Microsoft since about DOS 4 (known to some of us as DOG 4), and even in the halcyon times of Windows 3.X, I preferred running those drafty Windows versions on top of IBM’s PCDOS or Novell DOS.
I suffered through the cranky, creaky, crappy Windows 95, the almost good Windows 98 (and the “quite acceptable for most uses” 98SE… with some appropriate thefts from–> ), passed on the Muppet Edition, found NT4 useful and Win2K to be Just Right (for most things), never warmed much to XP and was appalled at the truly bad decisions that brought out the bloated resource hog, Vista.
In spite of my gripes, I’ve found Ubuntu 8.04/8.10 to be better overall than most Microsoft OS offerings, for most things (still sucks dead bunnies through a straw for midi creation).
But the rumbles going on about Windows 7 intrigue me. Seriously. I meant to install and evaluate the beta in January, but things just got in the way. I’m way off schedule on things, already, for February, but I hope to get to taking a serious look at Windows 7 this month. For one thing, this caught my eye:
…Windows 7, unlike Vista, has a small footprint and is not a resources glutton. I know this to be a fact because I have the beta version running on my Eee PC and it works fine – and it’s just a beta!
Intriguing. Me$$y$oft publish unbloated code? Could be a Very Good Thing. Since I’m considering a netbook purchase this year for myself, this could be a Very Very Good Thing indeed. And my Wonder Woman would probably appreciate some sort of Windows on the HTPC I might install this year, so if Windows 7 is at all acceptable, it could well be a candidate for that PC.
Even if I do make such a move though, it’d still leave three or more ‘nix boxes on our lil network–and maybe more, since I know an old Compaq (seriously spiffed up hardwarewise) will be going online this month with PCBSD, and when Son&Heir gets his softmods done on his old XBox, that’ll be another.
But the early reports on Windows 7 bode well for a new computer or two here at twc central using the OS. If it really pans out like the early press indicates.
UPDATE: *heh* This guy claims to have installed Windows 7 on a 600Mhz box w/only 512MB of RAM. If so–and the video of him doing it is compelling!–I have a few computers to try the 32-bit version on just sitting around unused. Need a DVD drive for ’em, though (yeh, they’re that old).
Update#2: Oh, heck, why not. *heh* Since I removed the “personal media drive” connectors and backplate, I have two more ready-made places (one in the bottom of the case) for SATA drives–and three open SATA connections on the MOBO. In addition, since I probably will remove the DVDROM drive from this computer for the old comp I’ve singled out to try the 32-bit Win7 on, I can install another drive–either SATA or IDE, in that bay, cover the bay opening and bob’s your uncle. While I seriously doubt I’ll add three more drives to this rig, I could, so even though I dislike the idea, I could easily do a dual boot of Win7 (64-bit) and Ubuntu 8.10 (64-bit)… and I might do just that.
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Faultline USA, Democrat=Socialist, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, and DragonLady’s World, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Sounds nifty. Keep us posted.
Sure, Woody. Heck, I might even rip a working DVDROM drive out of a working computer (as long as it still has a DVDRW) to do an installation. Gimme a coupla days or more to see what I can dig up around here.