'Vista Capable' Machines May Not Be
by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on 04.10.07
The environmental impact of Microsoft's Vista operating system will be large; it is projected that over 10 million PCs will be scrapped as a direct result of upgrading to Vista, and the UK Green Party thinks it will create a Vista upgrade layer that will be identifiable by archaeologists. So, based on this and the limited additional functionality the OS provides, this TH is not changing to Vista any time soon.
But there's more - turns out that some systems that are advertised as "Vista capable" (with the sticker) are in fact not capable of properly running Vista. A class is now suing Microsoft over this, alleging that the marketing around Vista was designed to deliberately mislead potential customers. Microsoft has already changed their stance, citing that a 'Vista capable' machine might not be able to run all of the versions (at least five) of Vista out there.
If you leaf through almost any PC catalog, you will discover that Vista is almost the sole choice for new PC systems. I don't know about you, but as Robert Cringely points out, you might find it maddening when you buy a system with a 'Vista Capable' sticker on it then discover your graphics or sound card won't work because the driver is not ready, or that it won't run the version with the 'cool' Aero interface. And when you consider that it took 1800 pounds of raw materials to make that computer, one must wonder what the environmental benefits are of vending systems that are obsolete as soon as they are off the shelf.
Vista is trash. Ubuntu is the answer!!! www.ubuntu.com!
Unfortunatly pushing Vista (or whatever is the latest MS OS) on consumers has to be done by the PC maker. At first they were required but MS lost the Monopoly trial so now they just give a discount to any brand that pushes it 100% and the PC market is too close to loose that discount.
So before you buy that next PC consider assembleing it yourself from parts and installing Linux instead so your not forced to buy Vista.
Buy a Mac!!
I may be cantankerous, but I can't see why someone can't or won't make a computer that does a few things well and will last for some appreciable amount of time.
Why does it seem that, as technology advances, we are more limited by it (as far as the economy and ecology of the "choices" we have)?
I second the Ubuntu call:) I know very little about computers, and I was able to get it up and running in minutes.
As TH's main techy guy, I have to say I've been very impressed with Ubuntu, with one glaring problem - it's darn near impossible to get drivers for a WiFi card to work. I spend two painful days trying and finally went back to windows.
Once that works, however, I'm done with windows for good!
Check out UbuntuForums.Org -- those folks can help you fix anything:)
I think the new version (out next week) is supposed to have better Wifi support, but it depends on the manufacturer's love of Linux:)
Try the new version of Ubuntu (Feisty) coming out April 19th... I think it fixes major wifi bugs :D
Ubuntu Rocks! Runs circles around windows.. especially that the virtual machines can run windows while running linux :D
I don't know if the TH people are reading this, but as an aside it would be really, REALLY nice to have a "printer friendly" option on articles like this. I teach Computer Science at a local college, and as a Mac and (Li/U)nix user, too, I push those OSs instead of the Microsoft model. This is a great article. Ubuntu rocks, and if you can afford them, Macs are super too. Also, one of my Macs is 7 years old, patched up to the current OS, running like a top, and I didn't need to upgrade/trash it...unlike many PCs. Great article, just wish I could print it for my students w/o all those other pages.
Why the hell would TH promote the waste of paper so that people in a computer class can read it's articles, especially when everyone in a computer class can just log onto the website and read the dang articles? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Wait, I forgot, the big site that is TH should cater to all our needs individually.
I wish people would get off of TH's butt all the time with complaints. You get a free website daily with awesome greenness -- what more can they really give us?