Vista is for the Birds

[baavgai]

While no anti Microsoft zealot, I do find the core philosophy of Vista, that user is presumed guilty and must be controlled, distasteful. If you are unclear what I'm talking about, Computerworld's Windows guru Scott Finnie has a clear write up. In later installments, he gives up on Windows entirely for an Apple.

Apple's price tag is a little steep for people used to comparable PC costs, though Finnie feels the expense worth it. I feel it's time too see just how far I can go with a free alternative. I'm talking about Linux, of course. If anyone wanted to try Linux, I'd send them to Ubuntu, one for the friendliest and most popular flavors of the operating system. Also, the one I'm currently typing on.

Any modern OS will have the basics. After that, it's the number of toys others are making for it. Here, Windows is king and all others are impoverished gentry scrambling for whatever peasants ( programmers ) are left. In short, if you want the latest greatest games, Windows is required, everyone else might have it.

What would I miss without Windows? Games. Well, really, just World of Warcraft. The challenge, then, is to get WoW to work in Linux. Well, there is a Windows emulator for Linux called Wine. So, after a day of tinkering, WoW works!

More than that, it works well. I've played for three days without adversity. I'm quite in awe of the effort that allows this to work. I even got the sound to work, a notoriously sticky spot for Linux. It's entirely possible that the home PC will be completely free from the evil empire very soon.

Comments

[maccuswell.livejournal.com]

I rather like that core philosophy, myself. Unix has had it for thirty years and that's how a sensible enterprise network should be run. The weakness in any system is the meat; users will violate company policy and download stupid things to install them, spyware will slip in through browser vulnerabilities, viruses spread through email, and so on. It's not so much that users need to be controlled so much as the current logged-in account needs to be controlled.

That's where Unix and Macs work elegantly and Windows (particularly Vista) stumble. Vista, in typical MS fashion, overwhelms you with prompts for the stupidest little things, and the "Run As" command in previous versions works with limited success (if, for instance, you have IE open with elevated privileges for system changes and you try to open any Explorer window, it will crash Explorer).

Dell annoyed me recently by switching over their entire line of Dimension desktops and Inspiron laptops to Vista, with XP completely unavailable. This is stupid. I used to pay $582 for a Dimension E521 with XP Pro and Office Basic; it's the perfect computer for the many users I have who are essentially data entry clerks. Now I can suck it up and buy Vista, buy an equivalent Optiplex instead for $840, or buy an Dimension sans OS for $502 (what a bargain that is! Still gotta buy Windows and Office and install them).

I tried running WoW under Wine once. It failed miserably, but that could have been the older hardware I was using for my Kubuntu sandbox.

[baavgai.livejournal.com]

In the presumed guilty philosophy, I'm thinking of DRM, intentionally degraded media playback for content not meeting certain criteria, WGA style police checks even after you've paid for the bloody thing, and generally more functionality in the product for third parties and less functionality for the customer who actually paid for the thing.

If you're thinking of the security mentality of least privilege necessary and running as such, then I agree. I run XP at home as a non administrator and install everything with "Run As", with varying degrees of success.

I'm quite amazed WoW runs as well as it does; it hasn't before. I like the Gnome default for Ubuntu, I never developed a KDE attachment. However, at the moment I'm working on Xubuntu (xfce) and it's proving more than adequate.