Friday, April 25, 2008
Windows Vista Systems
In my previous post I discussed the dilemma between choosing Windows XP or Vista but as Win XP is soon to be taken off the market that choice will soon not exist. When that happens the question will be which edition of Windows Vista do you choose - or is it time to consider moving away from the Microsoft realm and start considering Linux? Or maybe hang the expense and get an Apple?
For my money I think the Linux option could be an attractive alternative for home users and for some small businesses. For the benefit of anyone out there who doesn't know what Linux is - it is an open source operating system. You can get fully confused about Linux at http://www.linux.org/ - or for those of you into total insanity just do a search for Linux in Google and cram your head with the millions of links that get retrieved.
The great thing about Linux is that it is free and there are some great distributions out there Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSe and Red Hat. I recently checked out Ubuntu and found it to be terrific really. It came with some powerful MS office equivalent applications - to match Word, Excel and Powerpoint as well as a swag of games and graphics programs and I ran it on a clapped out Sempron 2400 machine that I was about to throw out and it ran faultlessly.
So I'm busily looking into building Linux systems as a budget alternative. Let's just compare the difference in specifications required.
If you choose Windows Vista anything less than a Core 2 Duo processor is a compromise, you can get by with 1Gb of RAM - but that's a compromise too - I wouldn't sell a Vista system with less than 2GB - again you can get by with a run of the mill on-board graphics controller but again anything less than a 256MB PCI-ex card is being frugal. Then you need to have MS-Office 2007 in one of its pricey editions - its tough to get much change from $1000 for a decent Windows Vista Box - never mind premium editions of Microsoft's offerings and the flat screen monitor that you would want on top of that.
Now on the other hand I'm thinking I could do a decent Linux system for about $500 perhaps a touch less. More on this as I progress. As for Apple - I'm still waiting forone to fall off the tree.
For my money I think the Linux option could be an attractive alternative for home users and for some small businesses. For the benefit of anyone out there who doesn't know what Linux is - it is an open source operating system. You can get fully confused about Linux at http://www.linux.org/ - or for those of you into total insanity just do a search for Linux in Google and cram your head with the millions of links that get retrieved.
The great thing about Linux is that it is free and there are some great distributions out there Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSe and Red Hat. I recently checked out Ubuntu and found it to be terrific really. It came with some powerful MS office equivalent applications - to match Word, Excel and Powerpoint as well as a swag of games and graphics programs and I ran it on a clapped out Sempron 2400 machine that I was about to throw out and it ran faultlessly.
So I'm busily looking into building Linux systems as a budget alternative. Let's just compare the difference in specifications required.
If you choose Windows Vista anything less than a Core 2 Duo processor is a compromise, you can get by with 1Gb of RAM - but that's a compromise too - I wouldn't sell a Vista system with less than 2GB - again you can get by with a run of the mill on-board graphics controller but again anything less than a 256MB PCI-ex card is being frugal. Then you need to have MS-Office 2007 in one of its pricey editions - its tough to get much change from $1000 for a decent Windows Vista Box - never mind premium editions of Microsoft's offerings and the flat screen monitor that you would want on top of that.
Now on the other hand I'm thinking I could do a decent Linux system for about $500 perhaps a touch less. More on this as I progress. As for Apple - I'm still waiting forone to fall off the tree.
# posted by furious @ 2:37 PM 
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