vista will run fine on that

all windows runs well below requirements

I'll run vista on a PII 450 with 160 mb ram just to show its possible

I'll run on that computer, that's something I can guarantee you. Though using it will be like watching paint dry

running and being usefull is two different this. Vista will run on that and suse linux will be useable on that.

vista will not scare people away, because they like windows and it doesn't matter how much microsoft screws up, they will always go back to it.

It is sure at more companies and administration will shift to linux. And as more compagnies do the shift, more users will follow.

But it remain a big problem for an average user. He or she want good multimedia support out of the box in most cases. And here linux have a lot of work to do. It is allready the biggest part that is done with many good applications, but the overall configuration of all those apps is a nightmare for an average new user. Another nightmare is at many distributions don't have full multimedia support.

It is ok for a company to buy a suse and don't have full multimedia support, they have the staf to add this support if they want to. But it is not ok at all for an average new user.

I would not criticize Microsoft for developping new software the requires substantial hardware upgrades, but praise them. Those of you who are on this forum are usually able to afford the hardware when it comes available.

What I like about forcing new technology though, is that it makes linux fly like a Ferarri, while MS software goes like a Chevy or Ford.

With respect to hardware, what is good for Microsoft, is even better for Linux.

If the hardware manufacturers even acknowledge the existance of linux that is, else we have to wait for some intelligent person to backhack and get it to work for us.

Thankfully now a lot of manufacturers are seeing that the linux user base is growing and are moving to support us. Even some games makers are (re doom III, quake 4 etc.)

As the topic goes, moving people to linux is good, upgrading to vista, how much will it cost? the software itself, not just the extra hardware, remember when XP came out, it was called eXtra Problems as not a lot worked with it.

Microsoft is not so stupid. Vista will run on anything will adapt its performance to the hardware available : i.e. not all the 'experience' will be available to all. See more there

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/16/vi...ormance_tiers/

I agree it

Why?

Why should I have to constantly upgrade my hardware? And "stay behind" what, exactly? Wait a minute! Was there a contest and nobody told me??!? I have a system less than a year old and, yes, according to what MS is currently putting out (as in the specs *right now*. Funny how they radically trimmed the projected hardware specs when people started slamming them in tech articles. Now it just says, "512 MB or more of RAM, a dedicated graphics card with DirectX® 9.0 support, and a modern, Intel Pentium- or AMD Athlon-based PC." They seem to have lost the part about how your flat-panel monitor wouldn't work with it and how you'd need 2 *gig* of DDR3 RAM for a 64 bit machine. Odd, that.) it would run Vista just fine (perish the thought). But if my system does what I need, lets me play with graphics in The GIMP, lets me design the occasional webpage, dink on the Internet and, most importantly, allows me to geek about under the hood, *why* do I need to constantly upgrade? I have a variety of machines around the house, some mine, some my husband's. Everything from some old 386's all the way back to a pair of TI99/4A's with their whopping 8K of memory each. All of them have tasks to do and all do them well. I just don't see the burning need to constantly upgrade hardware. Have you never known the joy of cobbling together some old, "obsolete" bits and making a working system out of them that fulfills a function? Pure, unadulterated happiness.

bmk

I agree. It is even more. We must look at the reason behind those huge hardware need. For what I understand, I have not try Vista and will not try it (eventually at work, but it is not actual), it will be one major new technology: the DRM that will check every thing on your box, from hardware to software and without forgetting all yours files.

You will not know if some DRM will send over the internet a rapport on what you have inside the box, and it is already rapport from what it is not possible to access part of old files, and that even when they are legal files.

The good news is at Vista is doing expensive publicity for linux.

so you mean that if there is anything that could be considered illegal, vista deletes it and reports you to ms

I mean at if you have old legal files with drm, vista will just pop up a windows with The solution on the micro$oft website is Vista can do that with every single file that you have from, as example, a precedent installation, or in another machine. It can be a music file that you have buy on itunes, or even a legal copy from a CD. The windows media player is writing DRMs in the wma files. The result with Vista is at you can only read the wma files you have done with the same box; or for files from itunes, you can play those files if you have buy them with the same machine.

It is even worse. Vista will check your hardware too, and if you want to play a dvd that you have just buy or rent, if you are lucky, it will work, but for that, you must have a dvd drive with the DRM technology, a graphic card with the same DRM technology, and even a monitor with this DRM technology. I am not 100% sure of that, but it is the way the last generation of TV-DVD equipments are working, and for what I know, it will come very soon in the hardware of the PCs, if it is not already on the market.

A not very funny story happened to Spielberg with his last movie and the DRM ont the movie. Vista mean at this kind of things are implemented at all the level of windows. It is for that at the hardware requirements are so high.

i'll probably stay xp then, until there is a way to disable drm, and i dont care what m$ says

Why is MS playing inspector? Why do they block things that they don't need to block? What do they win with it? Is there a law that forces them to do this? I guess not, because Linux don't has it, and as far as I know apple has it neither. And MS isn't in the music industry, so they don't have any reason at all to do this IMHO. Maybe they want to stop illegal activities, but they don't have any reason for it.

I understand that music companies, software developers, film makers try to protect their work. So I understand that MS will do the best it can to stop people copying their work. But that has nothing to do with stopping people to copy other software or music. There are software, music, and videos that are allowed to copy, but these won't work anymore because MS blocks almost everything that looks like it's illegal. So I'm lucky I can stick with Linux

m$ does it cuz the're jerks who want to make bill gates richer by stopping a few million dollars of m$ piracy a year

honestly, why dont they drop $30 of the price of every product, less people pirate, more money for them