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Windows trial versions?


Eldmannen

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You didn't really think you got it for free, now did you? wink.png

No, but cheaper, maybe cos its OEM.

I think when you buy it OEM, it is cheaper, than if you buy it retail.

However, with a OEM copy of Windows, you may only use it on that computer. You cant remove it from that computer, and use it on another computer.

With the retail copy of Windows, if you get a new computer later, you may install it on that computer, if you remove it from the old computer.

I think it is like that.

Since they pre-install it, I guess Microsoft gives the computer manufacturer some rebates.

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Unreasonable when you can get loads of great software for free. If you were to strip it down of all the stuff not needed, it wouldn't seem worth the price.

Good luck finding an OS that is free and just works like Windows does. It does not happen with any flavor of *nix.

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Unreasonable when you can get loads of great software for free. If you were to strip it down of all the stuff not needed, it wouldn't seem worth the price.

Good luck finding an OS that is free and just works like Windows does. It does not happen with any flavor of *nix.

Well, I admit, I don't think that nthere si any OS out there that rivals Windows in terms of hardware compatibility. Bu that is all they have got IMO. From what I have seen, there are many cheaper, or free OS's out there far better made and more secure.

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Unreasonable when you can get loads of great software for free. If you were to strip it down of all the stuff not needed, it wouldn't seem worth the price.

Good luck finding an OS that is free and just works like Windows does. It does not happen with any flavor of *nix.

Well, I admit, I don't think that nthere si any OS out there that rivals Windows in terms of hardware compatibility. Bu that is all they have got IMO. From what I have seen, there are many cheaper, or free OS's out there far better made and more secure.

Have you actually tried them? Because I have.

Gnome is very pretty to look at but is it better made than windows' graphical shell? HELL NO.

I would customize my panels and then after a reboot all my icons would be gone. Other times it would crash and I would have to press ctrl+alt+backspace(I think) to restart x.org or whatever its called. Linux as a kernel may be stable but the programs are not.

There is nothing that you can do on linux that can't be done on windows, however there are tons of stuff I can do on windows that cant be done on linux. On top of that, all my hardware works and I never have any problems that take more than a few minutes. You can shout "but its not secure" all you want but when is the last time you got a virus without having done something dumb? I haven't gotten a windows virus unintentionally in years.

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You can shout "but its not secure" all you want but when is the last time you got a virus without having done something dumb? I haven't gotten a windows virus unintentionally in years.

It wasn't that long ago I recall reading that Windows was the most secure OS because of the frequency of patches. I think Linux came in next followed by Apple.

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You can shout "but its not secure" all you want but when is the last time you got a virus without having done something dumb? I haven't gotten a windows virus unintentionally in years.

It wasn't that long ago I recall reading that Windows was the most secure OS because of the frequency of patches. I think Linux came in next followed by Apple.

Yeah but that might have only been because it required the most patches. :P

I would never bother arguing that windows is the most secure only that its not as unsecure as people like to make it out to be. There are lots of linux boards where people act like just because a computer has windows it has to have viruses on it, and if it doesn't then its just because you don't know about them, this simply isn't the case. (obviously as we all sit here with our perfectly working computers.)

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Unreasonable when you can get loads of great software for free. If you were to strip it down of all the stuff not needed, it wouldn't seem worth the price.

Good luck finding an OS that is free and just works like Windows does. It does not happen with any flavor of *nix.

Well, I admit, I don't think that nthere si any OS out there that rivals Windows in terms of hardware compatibility. Bu that is all they have got IMO. From what I have seen, there are many cheaper, or free OS's out there far better made and more secure.

Have you actually tried them? Because I have.

Gnome is very pretty to look at but is it better made than windows' graphical shell? HELL NO.

I would customize my panels and then after a reboot all my icons would be gone. Other times it would crash and I would have to press ctrl+alt+backspace(I think) to restart x.org or whatever its called. Linux as a kernel may be stable but the programs are not.

There is nothing that you can do on linux that can't be done on windows, however there are tons of stuff I can do on windows that cant be done on linux. On top of that, all my hardware works and I never have any problems that take more than a few minutes. You can shout "but its not secure" all you want but when is the last time you got a virus without having done something dumb? I haven't gotten a windows virus unintentionally in years.

I did say from what I have seen.

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Have you actually tried them? Because I have.

Gnome is very pretty to look at but is it better made than windows' graphical shell? HELL NO.

I would customize my panels and then after a reboot all my icons would be gone.

Yeah, I run GNOME everyday.

I never noticed any problems with it icons disappearing after reboot.

Though, I think GNOME needs some performance improvements. It takes a bit too long to start.

When was the last time you tried GNOME? The latest release is 2.24.2. The new 2.26 release is expected in March 18.

If GNOME is not your thing, then there are other desktop environments such as KDE and Xfce.

There is nothing that you can do on linux that can't be done on windows, however there are tons of stuff I can do on windows that cant be done on linux. On top of that, all my hardware works and I never have any problems that take more than a few minutes. You can shout "but its not secure" all you want but when is the last time you got a virus without having done something dumb? I haven't gotten a windows virus unintentionally in years.

There are probably things you can do in Linux that you can't do in Windows.

You can customize Linux much more. You can update all software on the system with one action and have all the software on the system updated. You can use Linux as a router. Install twenty programs with one command. Install it on all my computers without worrying about licenses or having to pay anything. You can install/uninstall pretty much any component, even roll your own distribution. Keep my system secure without software that consumes my system resources, requires my time, and frequently nags me. Run it from anything between a toaster to the worlds fastest supercomputer. The X Window System being transparent, I can have one application running on one computer, and remotely using it from another computer. Windows have these limits on amount of CPUs and cores, like 1 in Home, 2 in Professional edition. I can have thousands and thousands of CPUs and cores. Infinite possibilities for customization. Great possibilities for scripting. I can recompile the kernel, I can do whatever I want.

What can you do in Windows, that you cant do in Linux?

You can shout "but its not secure" all you want but when is the last time you got a virus without having done something dumb? I haven't gotten a windows virus unintentionally in years.

It wasn't that long ago I recall reading that Windows was the most secure OS because of the frequency of patches. I think Linux came in next followed by Apple.

I read a Microsoft-sponsored study that reached the conclusion that Windows was cheaper, freer, faster, better, more stable, cooler and more awesomer than Linux and any other operating system in any and every way. :P

There are many ways to look at it, and you can reach the conclusion you want, by looking and measuring some specific metrics.

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Have you actually tried them? Because I have.

Gnome is very pretty to look at but is it better made than windows' graphical shell? HELL NO.

I would customize my panels and then after a reboot all my icons would be gone.

Yeah, I run GNOME everyday.

I never noticed any problems with it icons disappearing after reboot.

Though, I think GNOME needs some performance improvements. It takes a bit too long to start.

When was the last time you tried GNOME? The latest release is 2.24.2. The new 2.26 release is expected in March 18.

If GNOME is not your thing, then there are other desktop environments such as KDE and Xfce.

The latest I've tried is whatever is in the newest ubuntu/linux mint. I try the newest version of ubuntu every time it comes out to see what its like. It does get better every release but its still not good enough yet. I did have the disapperaing icon issue in the latest version as well as the last one too. Plus the newest version of x.org is pretty aweful with the ati driver.(My screen would flicker, the opensource driver doesn't support 3d.)

Kde is slow/clunky(especially 4) and xfce is like being back on windows 98. Plus the tools that come with xfce are pretty basic/useless.

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The latest I've tried is whatever is in the newest ubuntu/linux mint. I try the newest version of ubuntu every time it comes out to see what its like. It does get better every release but its still not good enough yet. I did have the disapperaing icon issue in the latest version as well as the last one too. Plus the newest version of x.org is pretty aweful with the ati driver.(My screen would flicker, the opensource driver doesn't support 3d.)

Kde is slow/clunky(especially 4) and xfce is like being back on windows 98. Plus the tools that come with xfce are pretty basic/useless.

The latest release of Ubuntu (8.10 "Intrepid Ibex") comes with GNOME 2.24, I've never had any problems with it. The upcoming Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" hopefully comes with the upcoming GNOME 2.26.

It is good enough for me, but then again, we all have different needs, maybe it doesn't suite everyone.

The open source device driver is developed by the community, and it can be difficult, especially if the company doesn't release hardware documentation such as hardware registers, etc. Then boring time-consuming reverse-engineering is needed to develop drivers. Recently AMD have been very helpful in releasing hardware documentation though, and previously while they may have only released documentation for the 2D parts, they now have released documentation for 3D too.

So in the future, the open source ATI device driver will improve and get better support for 3D, etc. Also with additions such as a graphics memory manager in the kernel, and mode-switching in the kernel, and Gallium3D, DRI2, new Mesa, etc the open source device driver, will improve in the future, I think.

You can still use the official proprietary ATI device driver, which is fglrx. It is easily enabled in Ubuntu and it works much better than the open source device driver. It does 3D and stuff.

KDE4 is a complete rewrite and brings many interesting things. It is still young, but it does have potential, and it looks interesting and promising. It looks nice, and the upcoming KDE 4.2 release seems interesting.

Xfce is basic, yeah, but its made to be simple and light-weight. Some people like that. It is fast and good for older computers too.

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