new toy came preloaded with vista, wish I could play with it
Since the car did not need a new radiator we had enough left in savings to replace our broke laptop. Picked up an little HP. Not too fancy, but decent. Tried to show the size difference in the pic, but failed. Only 14 inches. Thing has Vista installed on it and I just wanted to burn off the recovery disks. Kinda bummed cuz 2 hours after getting home with it I am still on the first step.
Vista is a turd, pre installed custom operating systems suck. It took at least 20 minutes to get into vista. First the normal setup with username, pass, time zone, etc…. Goes through its thing while showing advertisements. Finaly looks like it is going to boot into windows and “installing HP software”. I wait, wait, peel the 10 stickers off the dam thing. Looked like it was sponsored by nascar. Then the register with us, oh would you like this special offer, how about …… Got in about 20 minutes after powering it on.
Anyway vista sux, go straight to disk burning program, gonna take about an hour is says. That was just to build the disks which eventually fill 10gb of the 12gb partition, now I have to burn 3 DVD’s or 17 CD’s. I figure 3 hours in I will get to install a better OS. Gonna install a fresh non HP tainted mini partition of vista since I have access to it and a key on this, then ubuntu.
One of the unexpected ‘perks’ of getting a thinkpad was it has the vista install image loaded into the primary partition with the bios and all of the hardware drivers. It takes up about 12gb, but I have the ‘luxury’ of being able to reinstall vista at anytime without having to worry about recovery CDs or product keys.
I also minimized when I upgraded (from a 17in Dell laptop to my new 14in IBM). The wife went for a 15in Dell at the same time, and I am glad I went with the 14. It is way lighter and easier to transport.
Even though I had never had a successful linux install, I knew within the first (oh lets say) 15 seconds that me and vista were not going to work out. I am glad I braved through the frustrating experience of getting Ubuntu up and running. I still have my nOOb moments when I try to install a beta program (lets face it, you have to have at least a minor in computer nerd to get it to work), but I am more than happy with the switch. Linux has come a long way in that respect since back in 2000 when I tried out redhat 8.
Now if only we can recruit the numbers necessary to get mainstream games linux compatible. I would drop my XP partition like a bad habit.
Comment by joetaxpayer — January 31, 2008 @ 12:22 am
Yeah yeah games on linux is like playing games on macs OS. HEHEHE Hate how Laptops come all the extra BS installed. But u know what I DO LOVE MY 17″ er !! I mean yeah its a few pounds but performs almost as good as my home pc and man i JAM out on bf2 like almost the whole night at work(working third it sucks but i get to play BF2 all night LOL) And watching movies is a extra PLUS on a wide 17″. So i say GAMER = XP and Heavy Laptop. Over worked Geeks – small tiny laptops running linux. lololol
but i do need a Linux server loaded for cs!!!
Comment by PsycoJuana — January 31, 2008 @ 1:56 am
I wiped the restore partition so the disk needed to be made.
Love the small form factor. Not gonna game on it, and the graphics are lame, but it is perfect for what we will use it for. Cannot believe how light and powerful it is.
I would love an uber laptop that could play games sometime, but for now this hits the spot.
Good thing is vista is on a 50gb partition and ubuntu is loaded up and rocking.
Comment by beerorkid — January 31, 2008 @ 9:09 am