[philg1961]

It may be true that no one in THIS community uses Linux exclusively, but, among the top 500 Supercomputers in the world, 449 use Linux, 6 use Windows Cluster an the remaining 46 use another OS.

SPEC 2006 benchmarks are particularly interesting for Vista. It appears to me that there is in inverse relationship between the number of cores and the performance of Vista. Vista on a dual core chip outperforms Vista on a quad core chip and Vista on a single processor outperforms Vista on dual processors.

[JEmlay]

Honestly, all that proves is that each OS has it's own specific uses.

Just because a Linux distro is used as a super computer doesn't mean THAT distro will make a good desktop machine.

Apples and Oranges.

Linux as a desktop OS would be impossible for us to use and maintain our productivity level with both the company as a whole and the IT department. Same goes with OSX. Yet, we have Linux application servers that I would never think to put a Windows OS on.



To actually get back on topic, my last installation of Vista allowed me to install Roxio DVDit Pro HD of which I had nothing but problems with. I reloaded my machine with Vista w/integrated SP1 (thanks MS! Heroes happen here) and now when I install that app it tells me that a specific tool that's being installed is not allowed. It stops the installation of that specific tool of which Roxio doesn't seem to need or at least I'm not using that feature and now my Vista installation runs fine with this app.

MS didn't block working drivers. So I don't really see what the problem is. If you're stopped from installing SP1 because of a driver issue then obviously you're having issues already.

[rtfire1]

I am going to make the xp world go in to shock. I had a copy of vista that was extra (my friend bought it heard about problems never upgraded) I have been having a lot of problems with my windows xp pc that I use as a dvr. props to asus (i know I spelled it wrong) they have drivers out there for my board to run vista. my pc is an old xp amd 2200 mhz chip (true 32 bit) the only problem I had was my navida video card had no drivers thats okay I had a 256 meg ati agp card. system works great it did take like 5 hours to upgrade to vista but it words great dvr records even better.

so know at home with my 2 kids one soon to be wife I have 3 vista pcs that work great and 2 xp pcs that are working okay but I am thinking about jumping up to vista one on of the other ones.

[jrbales]

I guess the computer gods must have been smiling down on me Thursday night. Since Windows Update failed to give me the option to download Vista SP1, I manually downloaded and installed it from the Microsoft website. So far no problems. I did use their list of possible problems, found a Realtek audio driver I didn't use anyway and deleted it before doing the install. (I do admit, before installing SP1 I pulled out an old computer and reinstalled Win XP in case the Vista machine became trashed by the upgrade!) I have had no problems with the existing drivers and System Hardware showed no problems with any of my hardware . So far Vista has been a positive experience since I installed it in January 2007. One reason I attribute to my good luck with Vista: I built my system with the goal of running Vista. I researched hardware and driver support for many months before Vista was released and had a firm idea what to use (that is, hardware only from vendors that had Vista drivers available or at least in Beta). I was also careful to purchase system utilities that were Vista-ready. It definitely paid off to do the homework ahead of time.

[jrbales]

I second that. For the average computer user that has problems even troubleshooting minor problems in Windows, addressing problems with even the most friendly distros of Linux would be a nightmare. I've spent time studying up on Linux and have tried several different distros. When a problem arose, it was an absolute headache to address and I can tell you from experience, your average computer user would be throwing the machine through the window long before the point that I ever threw up my hands and said "enough" (at least I knew how to reinstall Windows when aggravation and frustration grew to that point). Its easy to say "get Linux" but it doesn't take into account the level of computer knowledge out there in the general population. For the average Joe and Josephine Sixpack, Windows or OS X (if they're purchasing a computer) are probably going to be the best solution.

[rgreen4]

I agree with you on that, except that even above average computer users will and do have problems trouble shooting Linux. I have an older HP laptop that cannot be upgraded to Vista because of the insufficient ATI 9000/9100 integrated video chip. So, I thought, they keep touting Ubuntu and how easy it is to install, so I ordered the Live CD and a 4 CD pack of applications from the Linux Store (Canada) with a book to assist me. I read up in the book and found it far inferior to the "Missing Manual" series that O'Reilly publications has on Windows, but I installed a spare HD, and installed Ubuntu 7.10.

It installed fine, but then I tried to get the wireless to connect to my Router. Three hours later, I gave up and went to bed. The next evening I tried the Linux forum for suggestions, figuring it must be something simple. It seems that Linux has a known problem with Broadcom wireless chips (and thus HP and Dell laptops among a few other brands). When I posted that comment on this community, some of the Linux promoters quoted how I could manually enter commands to get the wireless chip to connect. Pulez! I gave up entering manual commands like that 19 years ago when I abandoned DOS commands in favor of Windows 3.0.

That machine is back to XP (I re-installed the XP drive) and I am happy with Vista on three machines and XP on two (plus one of the Vista machines also has an XP Pro and Win2K boot drive for experimentation). The Ubuntu discs are in the closet somewhere, I use the LiveCD to test new builds that don't have a HD, so it's not a total loss.

[donnyemu]

Just a silly question but have you thought about running Vista anyway, even if you can't do glass? Vista Basic or Home Premium works great on older machine that have at least 512mb of ram.. You would get a much more secure OS than XP. Just curious if you thought about it.. I have vista running fine on a radeon 9x00 card. There may be a better driver available now.

[oldav8r50401]

Vista service pack 1. Tried to install it twice, failed both times. What a frustrating system!

[rgreen4]

Hello oldav8450401 and Welcome to the PC World Community. Is that oldav8r as in old aviator?

Would you please post your experience with attempting to install SP1 in the Windows discussion area? Then when you list specifics of the response as well as specifics of the machine on which you attempted the install, we may be able to help you through this situation.

This discussion area is in relation to News Articles, so most that help solve problems don't look over here, and there may also be a series of questions and responses that would just clog up this discussion. In the problem solving arena we prefer to work on one problem and one machine at a time so we don't get crosstalk of trying to solve several problems on several machines at the same time. In a format such as this that just causes confusion.

In order to start you discussion by asking a question Click Here.

[rgreen4]

Oh, it installed and everything except the graphics worked great. The default graphics is something like 640 x 480, and with not Radeion Mobility 9000/9100 drivers I could not increase it. I just checked and the Vista drivers are for the Radeon Mobility 9600/9700/9800. Actually the XP drivers are for the same three versions. The drivers I have and that were preloaded on my machine and are the latested for this chip are Windows 2000 drivers, but they work with XP since it's the same family.
Thanks for asking and suggesting I look. I have just left that machine XP and have Vista HP on the new laptop that I am using at this moment.

[ivorycruncher]

Just fyi, shortly after Vista came out, I tried loading it on a Dell Latitude D600 at work, which had the Radeon Mobility 9000 chipset. I don't recall where I found drivers for it, but they did not come directly from ATI, I don't think. Whatever drivers I found, they seemed to work fine, as I was able to get the full 1024x768 resolution that the LCD panel was capable of (or was it one of the 1400x1050 res ones?).

In any case, after hunting a while, I managed to find drivers for all the hardware in the thing, including wireless. No unknown or non-working devices in the Device Manager. And with 1GB of RAM in it, it actually worked halfways decent, probably partly because it didn't have to run the Aero interface. Since the Radeon Mobility 9000 chipset is only capable of DirectX 7 (or 8?), there's no chance it could ever run Aero, which requires DirectX 9 and plenty of video memory, unfortunately.

My overall opinion of Vista is that alone, it's not that spectacular. I think of it as more of a new foundation upon which to build. Regardless of the reason, the focus in Vista ended up being primarily on security. Security, while very good to have, is not really all that visible to consumers, which is why many people think that Vista doesn't really bring anything new to the table. Vista's inner workings have been drastically modified and enhanced from where they were in XP, and it has a lot of potential. Microsoft has learned a lot about improving security in their products, and they will continue to grow in that area, but now it's time to start adding some real tangible value to it. As Microsoft guru Paul Thurrott pointed out, Microsoft made a mistake by offering too many of Vista's new goodies in XP (IE7, WMP11, Windows Defender, etc.). In the long run, I think Vista will end up becoming more of a stepping stone to Windows 7, which will hopefully become everything Vista was originally supposed to be. The best thing Microsoft can do right now is continue to market XP alongside Vista, or add some features to Vista that really make it worth the upgrade. While security is good to have, security alone is not always worth compromising compatibility and stability of existing environments. In any case, Windows 7 is set for release for sometime next year already (last I heard anyway), so we shouldn't have to wait long to see just how much Microsoft has learned from what happened with Vista.

[rgreen4]

You don't happen to still have that driver file do you? I tried finding a driver for the Radeon Mobility 9000/9100, but no dice. Every inquiry led back to ATI and they only have the W2K driver (which is used in XP). Although, I have now relegated that laptop to a secondary position behind my new HP 9500 with C2D and Vista. It'a 17", weighs the same as my older 15.4" and is only about a 1/2" wider and 1/2" deeper than the older machine. It also had the Nvidia GeForce Go 8400GT with HDMI output (along with VGA).

[oldav8r50401]

I tried to install vista sp1 twice and it failed. The third time, the screen came up to let me accept the license agreement and it installed without problems.

[foolishfish]

"Hi,I've actually learned more about this than i wanted to know. The Lenovo site stated that the X31 was Vista compatible, so I upgraded. (also had lot's of other Vista drivers on the X31 Driver Matrix. However, the video driver there the Video caused BSODs in ati3duag.dll)
So i initiated support cases with Microsoft, Lenovo, and AMD.Microsoft recommended two things, an Omega Driver .330 which did work much better, and a Microsoft recommended their '9000
WDDM driver' (which I have been running for some time). The way i
installed the Microsoft driver was via device manager, update driver,
unchecked 'show compatible devices', and expanded the ATI Tecnhologies
folder...all this was just from the Vista installation, and selected 'xxx 9000
XDDM'. DXDiag reported no problems, and apps like Google earth that
require 3D accelaration work fine. However the 16meg in the video chip
will not support Aero.
AMD came back and recommended a 'beta' Vista driver, and was told to select Randeon 7500. This driver worked as well.

It may be a once time problem, Microsoft has introduced a product (Vista,
that requires lot's more resources, and a rewrite of most of the
drivers. As you know, AMD/ATI produced the M6 chip set way back in
2001. However, my X31 is only 24 months old.
AMD/Lenovo have now elevated this to their engineering departments, and hope to have an 'official' answer in the next two weeks.For now, the 'xxx 9000 xddm' driver appears to be running just fine.
Hope this helps. My issue was, where do you turn to for support?
Initially ATI referred me to Lenovo, who in turn referred me to
Microsoft. Microsoft then referred me to ATI.But for now, machine is running just fine."





found here

[JEmlay]

Good luck with that Fish! I mostly have X31 laptops and when I tested one of them for Vista I had the same problem then some. End result was those laptops are a NO GO for Vista.

Most of mine are revision 1 units though. When X31 hit the market we bought a bunch of them. They're ready for the trash as far as I'm concerned. With that said, maybe if you have a later revision you'll have better luck.

[foolishfish]

Thats a quote from another user on another site, although i found the same workaround on a couple of sites.

the link is on the bottom of the original post.

follow the workaround detailed in the post. if that doesn't work, i have no answers for you as i don't own a lappy with the chip in question.

[JEmlay]

"then some"

Video was only one hurtle.

[ivorycruncher]

To rgreen4:



There's a third-party driver organization called Omega Drivers, and I think I used one of their drivers to get it working. However, I have no idea what capabilities it actually had in terms of 3D performance (no idea if it will even run Google Earth). Of course the mobility 9000 wasn't exactly a 3D powerhouse to begin with. Anyway, even they don't have a Vista driver for it, but I think I was able to get their XP version to install. ATI dropped support for the 9K series chipsets as of Catalyst 6.6 and up, so go to the link below and download Omega driver 3.8.252, which is based on Catalyst 6.5, the latest version possible for the 9000 chipset. I don't recall how difficult it was to get it to accept the driver, but you might have to do a bit of coaxing with the driver install wizard. I don't have a machine to try this with at the moment, so hopefully it will work for you as it did for me.



http://www.ngohq.com...iles&go=cat&dwncatid=14

[rgreen4]

Thanks for the reference. I will try it over the weekend on my cloned drive. I firmly believe in the concept of "do no harm", so I always try things like that on a cloned drive. If it blows up, I removed that drive and re-install the original. I can be back to where I started in 5 minutes that way. Saves a lot of re-install headaches.

[JEmlay]

If you love cloning then you'll love this:

thermaltakeusa.com/product/Storage/hdd[ustation/blacx[/u]se/blacx_se.asp]

I use two at home and two at work. Very convient over other cable only solutions.

To make this on topic....USE THESE and a clone app to help install SP1 without risking your install!