Windows Vista on Compal HEL80

Don't even try and say that windows hasn't released performance enhancing patches... because they have.

Also don't try and compare a Linux kernel update vs a complete kernel and hive overhaul like windows goes through with most new versions.

3.1 > 9x > NT > XP/2003 > Vista = different kernels and architectures.
Linux I used in 1992 > Linux I booted into last night = most of the same thing other then improved methods and enhanced functionality and support.

To give Linux kudos though, the lack of major changing architecture (X server's and window manager excluded since they are thankfully separately integrated into the system) has helped them tremendously.

 

Bull honkey. Have you ever read through the lkml? 2.6 is a major departure in architecture from the 2.4 series, which was a major departure from 2.2, etc. I'm talking about all kinds of subsystems. They break binary compatibility all the time inside the kernel, and it's not for the hell of it, it's for system restructuring purposes. Just USB itself has gone though many iterations:

"The development of the Linux USB subsystem started in 1997 and in the mean-
time it was redesigned many times. This implied various changes of its internal
structure and its API too. So it is even hard for experienced device driver de-
velopers to keep up to date with all ongoing discussions and current changes.

Windows is MUCH less dynamic than Linux as far as system-level changes, especially considering the number of hardware platforms that Linux supports vs. Windows (Windows = 1, Linux = over 20), many overhauls to the /dev subsystem (you used to have to set device nodes manually). It's conceptually the same, as in, everything is just a file. But that's all that's stayed the same in Linux. At a system level, Linux has changed MUCH more dramatically than Windows has, even since Windows 95.

BTW, read this comparison for a better idea of what features are in Linux that AREN'T in Windows, or were in Linux first. It's more from a systems-level comparison, and some things just don't make sense in Windows, but overall it's a good comparison. And it doesn't include the fact that Linux supported USB, Bluetooth, etc. in the kernel before Windows ever did.

 

Yeah very good link, one of my gripes with linux seems to be confirmed:
graphics performance (in general15) OK9, 15 Good9, 15

But mostly not linux's fault.

Also nice read:
http://engr.smu.edu/~mhd/7343f06/casecomp.ppt
Though seems to be biased to Windows.

A Look at the Future
The kernel architectures are fundamentally similar
There are differences in the details
Linux implementation is adopting more of the good ideas used in Windows
For the next 2-4 years Windows has and will maintain an edge
Linux is still behind on the cutting edge of performance tricks
Large performance team and lab at Microsoft has direct ties into the kernel developers
As time goes on the technological gap will narrow
Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) will feed performance test results to the kernel team
IBM and other vendors have Linux technology centers
Squeezing performance out of the OS gets much harder as the OS gets more tuned

 

Yeah. But you take the good with the bad. Linux is MILES ahead in process scheduling (we actually have a constant-time scheduler):

Scheduling (performance)
scheduling latency (average) (#201, #20210) Linux: 0.009mS Windows: 2mS
scheduling latency (worse) (#203, #20410) Linux: 0.3mS Windows: 16mS

as well as all threads, processes, everything being the same "weight" to create, whereas threads are light in Windows, but processes are heavy. Switching, especially on multi-core machines, is much less efficient on Windows.

Also note that the .smu.edu link is just the NT series of systems, has nothing to do with Windows 95. That's all we're comparing here, the actual "good" kernels, not the crap that was pawned off as a desktop system by Microsoft from 95->October of 2001 (when XP was released, finally putting the NT kernel officially on the consumer desktop).

 

I have installed Vista Business on a seperate partition from Windows XP. And there was an issue with the Touchpad drivers, I had to hunt down te correct ones but besides that I am having very few issues. I am not having any issues with audio and the fan does run more than it does under Win XP but it is not so much that it is upsetting me or anything and it doesn't run all the time just comes on for longer periods of time than under Win XP. I like Vista and my HEL 80 runs it very well. Hibernate actually works correctly now. I got AERO to work but I had to load the correct drivers and then reset my computers rating which I got a 4.4 after the correct drivers were installed. I do like it better than XP so far.

 

All that performance doesn't amount to squat when the software a good number of the user base wants aren't supported.. Read 0.0ms performance

The average user also doesn't care about microseconds or milliseconds, its all about interpreted feel, and the XP desktop feels much snappier then KDE and gnome in most situations.

I'm not trying to call Linux a bad O/S by any means, but it wasn't rooted in being a desktop O/S, and if it weren't for hobbyist and desperation(both from users and windows converts) it wouldn't be were it is today.

I like that you noted USB was supported in linux first.. thats cool, but USB wasn't a "standard everyone has a pen drive on their keychain" till years later.. Doesn't matter if they used Win/Lin/Mac... Hell, to this day the only pen drive I have / ever owned I got free from a college programming contest a few years back.

What I'm trying to say is you can't brag features to a common user if the feature's aren't used by a common user.

The new Jeep Wranglers can almost scale vertical walls (83 degree's if I remember right), yet occording to Jeep only 13% of the jeeps bought have ever taken atleast a dirt or gravel road

 

Sorry to dig up old bones...
But, since this was supposed to a thread about HEL80 users' experience w/ windows vista (as opposed to "why-linux-is-better-than-windows-but-why -people-still-use-windows). Dont get me wrong; I thought the discussion was very interesting, but ultimately i have had far more frustration using linux on this laptop than w/ XP or Vista.

So I decided to try out vista. XP was giving me RPC shutdowns intermittently (seemed to be triggered often when I would come back from suspend), and I couldn't fix it, so i wanted to format and i found my Vista Business edition that I got for free from school.

After reading this, and others, I was skeptical (But very curious), and I decided to proceed with caution. I backed up all data, and downloaded all vista drivers ahead of time. Some from bizcom others straight from the source and VGA from Laptopvideo2go. I also looked ahead at most programs i planned on installing to see what i should expect in terms of compatibility. Once i felt ready, I flashed to bios 116B. I formatted my drive, killing both XP and Ubuntu 6.10, and had the OS installed in something like 20 minutes. Faster than XP in my experience. After that, driver/app installation took a while, but no longer than with XP. I installed drivers in order, rebooting between chipset, VGA, and audio driver installs ( i used latest realtek drivers, LPV2G for VGA, and bizcomm chipset drivers), and then installed the rest of things with about 2 reboots in between. Then i proceeded to try and get all of my apps installed and running, and aside from annoying UAC stuff, it was fairly painless. I am having trouble with one or two programs, but for the most part I either downloaded newer versions of software that would work in vista or used the same installers I had for XP.

I have had a few problems so far that for the most part were very easy to resolve. In particular , I had an issue with Azureus causing my comp to crash. All I had to do to fix was run the program in XP sP2 compatability. Also, when i first installed wireless drivers, I could not connect to my DD-WRT router w/ WPA2 encryption. Didnt know exactly what the problem was, but an automatic windows update fixed it, and now I am on the web as I type this. There was also a bug with winrar 3.62 context menu integration, but i just got the 3.7beta and then it was fixed. Touchpad scrolling also did not work initially, but since i have installed Logitech setpoint for my VX revolution, it has worked fine. I am running the latest release of MATLAB (r2007a) and it seems to almost be running faster than in XP, but that is completely subjective. Media player classic and other legacy apps work great as well, even if i do not put them in compatability.

My feeling is that I like it better than XP. The looks are nice, especially with the WSXGA+, and it seems to have better usability. It just feels easier to get around and find things, and i havent had any trouble so far finding out where to tweak things, even though it is sometimes a little different getting under the hood of vista. Basically, my experience so far is very positive. Maybe i just got lucky, or maybe its because I proceeded with caution. Either way, I'm not saying everyone should drop 300$ on a new OS, definitely not worth it. But, having downloaded it for free from my college and needing to do a format anyway, it feels like a good choice to switch. I was bored w/ XP anyway. As a caveat, I cannot speak for power users as I do not really do any high-powered or advanced computing. Everyones criticisms and warnings about the OS are probably still valid even for me, but in the end I am enjoying myself.

 

And that's the most important thing

 

@Azriyeti

Grat's on being one of the few people happy with the switch

 

I hope know one takes this the wrong way because I respect all the opinions posted on Vista so far and the people at this forum are top notch. But I have to say that everyone is negative on Microsoft and Vista. I don't think people realize how bad some of the competitors for MS actually are. Also I am currently a successful Java/J2EE programmer and I have to say that I have had to deal with a lot of companies software and most of it is total and complete crap. I have experienced versions of Linux with mutilated kernels that crashed constantly. I have had to deal with IBM software that is overpriced and had so many bugs that it was almost and untenable situation to deploy an application at all I was lucky to get it done. I have worked with Eclipse/IntelliJ/Jbuilder/WSAD/RAD and I have to say they stink rotten compared to Visual Studio 6, 2003, 2005. I have also had to use ColdFusion which was better than the ASP but ASP.Net is awesome. MS has bent over backwards in the past making their operating system compatible with software that wasn't their's for example Sim City had a bug that wouldn't allow it to run correctly on Win95 so MS fixed the OS to detect Sim City and allow it to run in a special mode. You know Sun is trying to make software a commodity with Java so they can sell more services and hardware and beaf up their hourly consulting rate. IBM tried doing the same thing with Linux but they sell their App Server and consulting services for huge amounts of cash. You know their are no true good guys in Capitalism but some companies do try to be a little more moral on some issues but good guys no way. MS is just another company and yes sometimes they stink and use dasterdly methods but so does IBM, SUN, Oracle etc.. I have to deal with them all. So I agree that Linux especially Ubuntu is awesome and probably a good thing simply because you can see the code and improve it if nothing else but MS is not evil and Vista is not anywhere as bad as I have read on forums. Of course you have to upgrade your hardware it is only truly good for 3 years on average if that. You should see the requirements for some of the Java App Servers it would blow your mind that is the way technology is in general. If you want big improvements then you need to upgrade MS has done an excellent job compared to Apple which abandoned its base at least 3 times that I can think off forcing people to upgrade to totally different hardware not just a graphics card or memory upgrade. If you want to see for yourself simply do a dual boot system with WinXP until Vista drivers catch up and all the little bugs are discovered but you can still play with it and make up your own mind. So far I like it I don't love it I like it and I do think that in a lot of ways it is progress, if you are a Java developer then you will have some issues and if you aren't an OS tinkerer than stay with WinXP or Ubuntu. My HEL 80 runs very well with Vista currently OmniPass is the only unreliable software and I haven't tried headphones or my built in camera but I will over the weekend and will post back any issues and solutions I find.

 

Yea as I posted earlier, my experience with Vista so far is going very well. I have not installed omnipass on it, and given PieceofChum's comment I probably will not for a while. I thought Vista would be slow, but for the most part it is at least as responsive as XP. I have not had any crashes except for a bug with Azureus that was quickly fixed. I have done some tweaks, including removing some stuff from being indexed constantly in addition to removing alot of automatic startup programs that I did not need. I am really enjoying the gadgets that come in the sidepanel.

One curious result I have had was in at MATLAB benchmark; my core duo T2500 was beaten by my PI's pentium M 2ghz under XP. Granted, there are alot of variables there including OS, MATLAB version, etc, but I am very confused about the result considering my processor is the direct successor to his.

 

There are large fluctuations on the Matlab benchmark. Run it many times and take the minimum value.

I got this:
0.1802 0.2248 0.1774 0.3593 0.3147 0.7004

On a T7400 WinXP x32.

 

0.2761 0.2698 0.2106 0.5224 0.5203 0.7490

Dont know what the lowest was, seems like sometimes the first few numbers are shorter while sometimes the last few are shorter...

I def saw a good amount of variability in mine, but the actual bar graph gives me a consistent 39.5-40.5.

Sigh. Your benches make me want the T7xxx series already... but the T7600 is soooo expensive :*(

T2500, Vista x32, R2007a complete

 

Mine was on 2006b will post results on 2007a later.

 

Result for 2007a:
0.1745 0.2309 0.1782 0.3550 0.2830 0.6900

 

It seems multi-threading is disabled by default in 2007a, here are the results with multi-threading enabled:
0.1227 0.2225 0.1848 0.3917 0.2813 0.6853

 

I already head multi threading on, I forgot to mention that. I need a core2duo!