[sclug] Who has the key to your Vista PC?

[Tom Chance]

Ahoy,

On Wed, 7 Feb 2007 19:49:18 +0000, ed <ed at s5h.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 18:33:41 +0000
> Stuart Major <stuartmajor at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> 
>> He continued, "Vista requires more expensive and energy-hungry
>> hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment. This
>> will also further exclude the poor from the latest technology, and
>> impose burdensome costs on small and medium businesses who will be
>> forced to enter another expensive upgrade cycle.
> 
> i wonder how many of the 'insufficient' hardware for aero can run
> beryl/compiz just fine!!

That would make an interesting stat :) AFAIK beryl/compiz are designed to work on older hardware so it should certainly be a higher proportion of the computers out there. Then again bad Free drivers might make a monkey of me for saying that! I don't suppose Linux users and developers are saints when it comes to hardware upgrades, but at least there's a prevalent attitude that things should run on older hardware if possible.

Of course with Vista it's also a matter of not being able to watch certain content well or at all due to DRM, which Linux is entirely free of.

I've been using Linux exclusively at home for around five/six years now, I'm a GUI (KDE) man through and through and perfectly happy with the functionality and glitz I'm provided with! Maybe Microsoft should focus on things like virtual desktops, *decent* desktop search, a more integrated desktop environment and other actually useful features where Linux leads them, rather than shiny buttons and crappy DRM ;-)

Regards,
Tom