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Re: [News] Internet Explorer 7 is Spyware

Gubo Dangle wrote:
> Erik Funkenbusch brought:
>> High Plains Thumper wrote:
> ...
> 
>>> Vista will run on an 850 MHz Pentium with 512 MB memory.
>>> However, those are considered minimal requirements.
> 
> Try running something a modern Distro with KDE on a 850MHz Pentium and
> see how it crawls.

Oh, really?  See:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_frm/
thread/cd3ef1aae26c30ad/68c018b47f1f62f1?lnk=gst&q=And+another+
happy+family%2C+courtesy+of+Linux&rnum=1#68c018b47f1f62f1

or http://tinyurl.com/oe2kv

| Turns out she was talking about a seven year old Compaq with an AMD
| Athlon 650 MHz, only 128MB of RAM and equally ancient video and sound
| cards. They had already tried reinstalling Windows 98, but the Compaq

| But then, to my surprise, the installation was all done in 45 minutes -
| and imagine my even bigger surprise when I found that KDE was working
| just fine - and that even OpenOffice took perhaps 15 seconds to start,
| and then worked just as snappy as ever. I called up the hardware list,
| and double checked that yes, indeed, there was only 128MB of RAM in
| this machine. But it works just fine! OK, things get quickly bogged
| down with e.g. OO.o, Mozilla, and Kaffeine running at the same time -
| but if you refrain from carelessly starting several concurrent
| applications, the machine was perhaps not the fastest horse in the
| race, but certainly workable. 

Scroll down to 5th thread:

| Just a vanilla Mandriva 2006 install, i.e. a default install with the
| desktop/game/multimedia categories selected, with KDE as a WM; after the
| initial install, I just added all relevant mplayer components, plus some
| encumbered stuff not included in the distribution (Windows codecs,
| DeCSS), which is offered through a couple of separate, easily installed
| repositories. 

Customer satisfaction from initial thread (scroll up):

| You should have seen the faces of these people: all big eyes and open
| mouths, for two hours solid ... "What, no driver disks needed?" "Huh,
| it found and configured the printer all by itself?" "AND the network
| card?" "Even the old scanner??? That thing has been dead for years, and
| now it works!" "OpenOffice can use Microsoft .doc by default? So I don't
| need MS Office?" "What, I can just plug in my MP3 player and drag the
| songs anywhere I want? Hey mom, look! Even the camera works in one go! We
| don't have to use that other stupid software any more!" "OK, but there's
| no MSN on this thing, or is there? There is??? Damn, this is cool!" "But
| where's  the antivirus? Whaddyamean, we don't need it? You must be
| kidding ... no, you're not?"          

The punchline:

| And so on and so on ... I patiently demonstrated everything and answered
| all their questions - all but te final one: "But why do people keep paying
| for Windows when you can get all this for free?" This turned out to be the
| only question I couldn't answer in a satisfactory manner ...   

>>> I see the hardware inflationary cycle continuing.
> 
> Why wouldn't it? Or should the entire PC industry pack up, go home and
> accept that 'users will never need more than 640K' ?

Why should the user accept excessive inflationary cycles to the point where
they cannot get at least 5 years solid use without serious upgrading?  This
hurts not only the home/small office user, but corporate
return-on-investments.

With longer ROI, one can order much more sturdy equipment and better
hardware.

-- 
HPT

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