After about 2 months of using redhat 9 after several years as a windoze user and after getting to know the ropes of linux I have to say I got a little attached. My computer is a little underpowered by todays standards and redhat 9 ran a bit slower than xp so I decided for now it would be best to switch back to windows and wait till I upgrade to run linux. Well I tried out the next windows codename "longhorn" and lemme tell ya, i'm not impressed at all. I have a 400 mhz celeron mini tower with 392 mb ram which is showing it's age now but xp ran very well as far as responsiveness goes. When I saw the system requirements for "longhorn" I was a little shocked. Pentium 3 @ 600 mhz with 128 mb ram is the MINIMUM! When I saw that I figured this is going to be like the 9th wonder of the world with all sorts of cool advanced features and neat new innovations to justify this amount of hardware muscle. In my opinion so far, i'd say to M$ fans to save your money on longhorn when it does come out because it's not much more than XP on steroids. If anybody else out there has had a chance to try out longhorn please post some feedback. Ugghh everything is so damned slow!

I'm not even going to comment on M$ products. You have a standard RH install and as a result it's probably running a 101 different services most of which you don't use or need. I had the same experience with Mandrake. I moved to Debian and had a much faster box. You need to cut down on the services you are running or look at a more customised system such as Debian or one of the others.

as far as I know longhorn is not just winXP on steroids, even if the current version that has been showed to magazines etc uses lots of winXP graphics (that will change with avalon graphics system)... Windows longhorn has lots of new techologies like winFS etc.

If I recall correctly, even microsoft has said they are targetting dual core 3-4 ghz+ systems as the recommended spec (or something similar --> remember that longhorn is not expected to ship before 2006) Longhorns test version (according to magazines) runs very slow on 3 ghz p4 systems (although it is a debug version of course so it´s slower than usual). In other words, looks like the minimum system for longhorn will propably be closer to 3 ghz p4 than winxp:s minimum system rec.

edit: I also agree that redhat is bloated and slower than distros like debian. If you like to read alot about linux etc, then you could perhaps try to install debian, it will be much faster than redhat. Also, to answer your posts question - I think linux is the future operating system

I'll admit, I made that statement because they seem to use a lot of the same old xp images but now I understand how early in development it still is so I guess I can give 'em some slack. I didn't realize that longhorn was slated for release in 2006. That definitely changes my opinion on the high minimum requirements to run it. In another 2 years we should be well past the 4 ghz mark so a p3 @ 600mhz packin 128 mb ram doesn't sound like too much to ask for. I'm no programmer but the look of the next version of windows is much sleeker and much more refined and polished than XP. Damn I just hate to admit it's time for a new computer...this lil celeron just keeps on truckin along tho...as much as I procrastinate, i'll probly let the hard drive burnout before I take the plunge and get a new sys

a little off topic but.....
im currently running fedora core 2 stable.
i made a copy of runlevel 5, and stuck it in runlever 4 (un-used runlevel) set runlever 4 as default. then deleted everything that i didnt use or need.

only things like random number generator (i use encryption)
and XFS and the other essential things run at bootup.

this has effectivly almost halved my boot time. (plus my custom compiled kernel knocked a bit off)

i assume this means ive cut off the extra bloat.... well, its still taking up disk space, but its not running.

would i still benefit in speed by switching to different Distro like the mentioned Gentoo or debian ?

im a bit of a redhat freak....
ive used redhat 9, fedora core, and fedora core 2.
(plus knoppix and DSL for my work in progress pc (it dont have a hard disk yet))

anyway.. back on topic.
i wont be touching longhorn !
It seems that WinFS is just an extension built on top of the NT file system.
(any1 confirm this ?)

which to me means one thing.... STILL BROKEN.
how long has linux had file systems tht dont degrade iver time, that dont need to be defragmented to to delay the inevitable grind to halt slow-ness.

and dont even get me started on Trust worthy Computing !!!

LINUX is teh r00xorz!!!!!!!!111

I'd take *nix over any MS product, but as it stands when it comes to desktop OSes (as opposed to PDAs where Linux reigns supreme) I prefer OS X to Linux. Linux is pretty interesting though which is why I'm keeping a close eye on it.

Wont know until Longhorn is officially released...but keep in mind you're comparing something almost free to something that will cost between $100-$200. Whats better a free Corvette or a $20,000 Dodge Stratus?

and Microsoft will run itself right in the financial grave with those kind of requirements. If it requires anything over a 2GHZ pentium/AMD processor they won't have alot of people upgrading or whatever else.

forget the costs!!!, most people would kick windows off and buy a mac when they see how M$ TC works (there files are all deleted) .... and the only reason most will pick a mac is because they don't know of any other OS's (if they even know what that is) for the x86 computers

in my opinion longhorn is just another half-assed desktop OS that trys to ruin your life (oops, i ment run* ) ...... win3.1 was ok at the time, win95 even better, win98 better, winME honorably worse, winNT sucks on desktop, win2000 sucks on desktop (you cant do anything, and it treats you like a network) winXP worst of all, just to much "security" settings that take away at what i can do while not being anymore secure as far as stopping hacker/crackers/script kiddies/worms/viruses it almost seems to promote it!

i have little doubt that longhorn(following in tradition) will strangle its users way to much and even more of the people that use M$ will search for alternatives, or at least willing to try one they here about

EDIT: oops i forgot to tell why linux IS the next generation OS (or at least growing there, unlike M$)

we can start with security, for one.. almost no 2 linux OS's are the same, even the file permissions structure(to add suport of ACL, RC, FF, FC, MAC, etc) can be changed to offer difrent security methods for the files

the desktops can be changed to looks like what you want, and if you want next generations, theres always sun's looking glass desktop (not what i would pick, but defidently has that next generation look i think)

even for a complete newb i think linux would be good for them (just as long as they have someone that knows what they are doing near by to handle those little problems and matenece that every OS needs)

and i dont think i even need to mention how more secure it is over windows, or even how secure it can become

SciYro while I understand what your saying somewhat I can only half way agree. While we all can agree that Linux is a better OS I still do not see it taking over Microsoft in the desktop platform wars. As much as people get pissed when they have a problem with their PC they still will stick with what they are comfortable with. No matter how many great fast food joints, better burgers, healthier sandwiches, meatier patties whatever arises, some are just dedicated to McDonalds and it will probably stay that way.
Linux now, next year and probably even 3 years from now will still be seen by many as a hobbyist OS for people who are tech savvy. (Outside of the business and tech world that is) Another thing you have to realize and this comes in regards to their next OS is that with each release M$ is keeping their eye open on the problems that plagued their last release. I know you hate XP but XP was a step up from 98 and ME! 98 and ME were horrible about allocating memory and that was were 80 percent of their problems existed. Buffer overflows etc. They changed that with XP even though they clamped down the controls. But you find that many people don't want to get under the hood of an OS...they just want it to work and they want to be familiar with it.

As each new version of Windows comes out I think M$ is paying attention to what Linux is doing and even what Apple is doing and thats why they are taking so much time and even changing the file system. I really dont know how it will turn out in the end but I think competition is good for all business and Linux is the thorn in their side that made their asses wake up hopefully.

As long as MS keeps offering somewhat of "backward compatibility", peoples will always be using Windows. The reason for this is because users invested too much money in software since DOS. I, for example, must have now over a thousand original computer games laying around, since Commander Keen (or even older...), and that's the reason I still keep Win98SE around in another box when I want to play them.

Currently, emulation of DOS and Windows is very limited, both in performance and compatibility. But that may change when we have descent processors at lower costs in the future.

I seriously don't see Linux taking over the market any time soon and Mac's taking over the market, well, for the overpriced products they sell, never.... Perhaps things would be more interesting if a new OS, aimed for desktop and written from scratch appears....

Well alot will ride on the future of MS with Longhorn...remember they are designing this OS from the ground up and any time you do that you either succeed or fail miserable and if they fail given that it had been 5 years (2001-2006) from the release of XP the competition will have significant gains on them and the only thing to save their a$$ is Office which is becoming less and less impressive: After Office 2000 I havent seen a significant reason to upgrade.