The Energon Pub

I know we have some computer guru's here. I know I'll be getting some good advice from Muffin when he comes across the topic.

However, I need an OS other than Vista or XP. I'm running into too many problems concerning Vista. So I figure I should just bite the bullet and get rid of my crap os.

Now I'm not an OS aficionado. Though I do have some things I'm looking into, like Ubuntu.

But the OS needs to work with the following programs, and I have no clue if they do for Ubuntu.

Adobe Photoshop
3ds Max 9
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro

so if someone could point me in the right direction, I can handle things from there, and I appreciate all te responses I get, so thank you in advance.

You know me too well. First off. Why not XP? Is there some specific reason? Did it eat a family member?

Your other option is Linux. AKA Ubuntu.

Photoshop will work on it (depending on version). The others I am unsure of. You do have to go through a slight process though if I'm reading correctly.

I've never used anything besides XP to run an Adobe product though, so I'm as much a newb as you on the subject.

Me and XP seem to have bad luck. The legit copies I owned all ended up having problems with them. The borrowed-without-asking copies ended up screwing up. So I went with Vista when I got a new computer.

That and I can't find any of the boot-disk software for my copies of XP.

The technology gremlins seem to not want me to use XP.

what about windows mojhove

seriously though, I can't think of anything. sorry man.

Windows Server 2008. It's like vista but far more stable. I've been running it for a couple months and have never had any issues with Vista drivers or codec or software.

How about Windows 2000? Its essentially XP without all the overhead. Its one of the most stable and best OS's Microsoft made, and anything that runs on XP most likely will work fine on 2000. I prefer XP over 2000 just because some of the subtle features of XP that don't exist in 2000. Nothing major but when your used to things like "compressed file support" and they aren't there in 2000 it annoys you. But what I really love about 2000 is as long as you have a processor thats 300mhz or faster, and 128MB of memory it'll run like crack!

Congrats on deciding to ditch Vista. Vista sucks. I've come to that conclusion. The pretty fancy interface is cool at first, but the bugs and glitches eventually make you realize you can't judge a book by the cover. Vista is the modern day version of Windows ME which IMO was the worst windows ever released...until vista! The only reason I can even see for running Vista on a PC is DX10. Other than that, your better off running XP or 2000.

Yup. DX10 is honestly the only reason I own that OS. Having to technically hack the OS to get a true Administrative account is utterly ridiculous.

I dual boot it with XP so I can run Gears of War with DX10. Other than that, it stays on it's tiny partition only to be used a couple times a month.

Poor Vista. It is pretty laughable though. Especially as they release updates that break the OS even further, which is hilarious.

One of the computers at work that has Vista on it is now stuck in an endless update loop because of Microsoft's broken updates. So it's just sitting in a corner at the moment until I can be arsed to fix it.

When Mass Effect refused point blank to run on Vista no matter how much I tweaked it yet ran absolutely perfectly the first time with no problems and no crashes on XP, that was the end of my Vista adventure.

It is my fond hope that WINE will reach a level where I will never have to consider dealing with Microsoft products ever again. And with that in mind I heartily recommend Linux to anyone else who is tired of this bull.

Vista is.. interesting. After every update, it makes a notice that my copy is illegal, and won't let me log in - those times the only solution is to open the Explorer from the failure pop-up, and make it genuine. BUT: after that I need to genuise it another two times after I logged in, restart it, and only then is it as it was...

I took vista off for several reasons:

#1. too slow. It wasn't so slow that a normal PC user wouldn't know a difference. My wife, for instance, could barely tell a difference after I put it on. Me however it drove me nuts. mainly booting up and logging on. When I first logged on to Vista, it would take like 5 minutes to connect to the network, and it would be slow and lagging during the whole thing. On a newer computer its much better from my understanding, but my PC is essentially an early 2006 model. Too old for vista!

#2. Coma mode. I don't like to turn my PC off, but if I leave it running all the time then it sucks too much power. I decided to start using sleep mode with XP and it saved me like $20 - $30 a month on my power bill. Well with Vista it worked fine for a while, but in the last few weeks i was using it, it would go into a coma. NOTHING would wake it up. It drove me up the wall! I eventually gave it up and turned off sleep mode.

#3. Random Lockups. I've used XP since I built my second computer in 2002 (prior to that I was using an old Pentium 233mmx based PC I built in 1998... that was an awesome upgrade), and I literally have NEVER seen it lock up! Vista, however, didn't like my USB devices. Sometimes I'd plug my MP3 player in and it would just freeze. Sometimes the screen saver would be on and it would cause the OS to freeze. That kind of stuff is unnaceptible IMO. This isn't windows 98. This is an NT based OS and it should be a lot more stable!

Thats why I did away with it. That and the 50 running processes from a clean install, and the fact it typically used up 1.8 of my 2GB of memmory at all times. Vista is just bad. I Really didn't understand the reasoning to get rid of XP so quick. Sure, Mac OS's look nicer, but looks aren't everything. And really the pretty looks of Vista are the only thing its got on XP, and honestly they could of gave the Vista theme to XP without releasing a new OS. I for one am fine with using the old "playschool plastic" Windows XP for now. I don't think I'll ever go back to Vista.

Cormaster628 wrote:I took vista off for several reasons:

#1. too slow. It wasn't so slow that a normal PC user wouldn't know a difference. My wife, for instance, could barely tell a difference after I put it on. Me however it drove me nuts. mainly booting up and logging on. When I first logged on to Vista, it would take like 5 minutes to connect to the network, and it would be slow and lagging during the whole thing. On a newer computer its much better from my understanding, but my PC is essentially an early 2006 model. Too old for vista!

Way too slow. I could've run on foot to NYC faster than it could load the calculator. I have a dual core, 64 bit processor with 2 gigs of ram and it still ran sluggish.

Cormaster628 wrote:#2. Coma mode. I don't like to turn my PC off, but if I leave it running all the time then it sucks too much power. I decided to start using sleep mode with XP and it saved me like $20 - $30 a month on my power bill. Well with Vista it worked fine for a while, but in the last few weeks i was using it, it would go into a coma. NOTHING would wake it up. It drove me up the wall! I eventually gave it up and turned off sleep mode.

I never tried it. I either leave it on or off. (I now use the sleep function so my TV Tuner's PVR can kick on, but that's about it.)

Cormaster628 wrote:#3. Random Lockups. I've used XP since I built my second computer in 2002 (prior to that I was using an old Pentium 233mmx based PC I built in 1998... that was an awesome upgrade), and I literally have NEVER seen it lock up! Vista, however, didn't like my USB devices. Sometimes I'd plug my MP3 player in and it would just freeze. Sometimes the screen saver would be on and it would cause the OS to freeze. That kind of stuff is unnaceptible IMO. This isn't windows 98. This is an NT based OS and it should be a lot more stable!

Yes! Watching Vista give me the BSOD twice, was enough to shake me. I've never witnessed a computer of this era, crashing like that. I hadn't seen a BSOD since Millennium Edition. XP is just awesome. XP and Vista are like Goliath and K.I.T.T. XP would smash right through Vista like tissue paper.

Cormaster628 wrote:Thats why I did away with it. That and the 50 running processes from a clean install, and the fact it typically used up 1.8 of my 2GB of memmory at all times. Vista is just bad. I Really didn't understand the reasoning to get rid of XP so quick. Sure, Mac OS's look nicer, but looks aren't everything. And really the pretty looks of Vista are the only thing its got on XP, and honestly they could of gave the Vista theme to XP without releasing a new OS. I for one am fine with using the old "playschool plastic" Windows XP for now. I don't think I'll ever go back to Vista.

I still have no idea what the processes do. I'd shut them down, end up killing Windows and having to restart the computer. (you can do the same thing in XP, but at least you have a rough idea what you're shutting down.)

You need two gigs to really get the basic..."enjoyment" of Vista. At the store, they recommended to me to get at least three or more to get the full experience. XP? Dances in the corner with two. And has jazz hands.

I care nothing about the looks. I'm all about stability and performance, so I cranked XP (and Vista!) back to classic Windows. Sure, it's boring, but it runs nicely.

Hell there are programs that allow you to make XP look like vista. Windowblinds for example.

I have been using the standard Windows 95 look forever... I feel like I'm so behind the times with all the kids and their flashy stylized taskbars and Vista Aero thingies.

Tekka wrote:I have been using the standard Windows 95 look forever... I feel like I'm so behind the times with all the kids and their flashy stylized taskbars and Vista Aero thingies.

Aero, while looking really nice in HD, is not that important. I got rid of it almost immediately.

I couldn't believe how much the speed picked up once I shut off all of the crap.

I never even got to try it, since I had Vista Basic. Honestly, why pay more for Ultimate just so you can run things slower.

Tekka wrote:I never even got to try it, since I had Vista Basic. Honestly, why pay more for Ultimate just so you can run things slower.

I'm not even sure why they created Vista Basic. You need everything that Home Premium and Ultimate offer, to truly get the most of Vista.

It's like giving someone a car without wheels. Sure, it looks nice, has a few neat features, but just won't get you anywhere without costing you more money.

I'd like to share with you folks, my computer / my desktop. Click to enlarge.



Looks familiar to Vista users.... Doesn't it? As stated above, I dual boot with XP and Vista.....

This is what my XP looks like... And I only have 35 processes running! 366/4096 MB of memory and 1% CPU usage.

All the functions. None of the **** ups.

Autobot032 wrote:

Tekka wrote:I never even got to try it, since I had Vista Basic. Honestly, why pay more for Ultimate just so you can run things slower.

I'm not even sure why they created Vista Basic. You need everything that Home Premium and Ultimate offer, to truly get the most of Vista.

It's like giving someone a car without wheels. Sure, it looks nice, has a few neat features, but just won't get you anywhere without costing you more money.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at there. Basic had all the functionality that was needed without all the extras bogging it down... yet still managed to get bogged down.

So what is Basic missing that is so vital?

Autobot032 wrote:

Cormaster628 wrote:I took vista off for several reasons:

#1. too slow. It wasn't so slow that a normal PC user wouldn't know a difference. My wife, for instance, could barely tell a difference after I put it on. Me however it drove me nuts. mainly booting up and logging on. When I first logged on to Vista, it would take like 5 minutes to connect to the network, and it would be slow and lagging during the whole thing. On a newer computer its much better from my understanding, but my PC is essentially an early 2006 model. Too old for vista!

Way too slow. I could've run on foot to NYC faster than it could load the calculator. I have a dual core, 64 bit processor with 2 gigs of ram and it still ran sluggish.

[/quote]

I have a 3.2GHz Single core, the system runs just fine for me. FireFox is a bit slow, though, which confuses me, because IE7 runs just fine.

Autobot032 wrote:

Cormaster628 wrote:#2. Coma mode. I don't like to turn my PC off, but if I leave it running all the time then it sucks too much power. I decided to start using sleep mode with XP and it saved me like $20 - $30 a month on my power bill. Well with Vista it worked fine for a while, but in the last few weeks i was using it, it would go into a coma. NOTHING would wake it up. It drove me up the wall! I eventually gave it up and turned off sleep mode.

I never tried it. I either leave it on or off. (I now use the sleep function so my TV Tuner's PVR can kick on, but that's about it.)

I tend to just leave my machine on, but I have used Sleep mode, which runs just fine.

Autobot032 wrote:

Cormaster628 wrote:#3. Random Lockups. I've used XP since I built my second computer in 2002 (prior to that I was using an old Pentium 233mmx based PC I built in 1998... that was an awesome upgrade), and I literally have NEVER seen it lock up! Vista, however, didn't like my USB devices. Sometimes I'd plug my MP3 player in and it would just freeze. Sometimes the screen saver would be on and it would cause the OS to freeze. That kind of stuff is unnaceptible IMO. This isn't windows 98. This is an NT based OS and it should be a lot more stable!

Yes! Watching Vista give me the BSOD twice, was enough to shake me. I've never witnessed a computer of this era, crashing like that. I hadn't seen a BSOD since Millennium Edition. XP is just awesome. XP and Vista are like Goliath and K.I.T.T. XP would smash right through Vista like tissue paper.

I had BSoD once, and it was a really shoddy program that I got rid of anyway.

Autobot032 wrote:

Cormaster628 wrote:Thats why I did away with it. That and the 50 running processes from a clean install, and the fact it typically used up 1.8 of my 2GB of memmory at all times. Vista is just bad. I Really didn't understand the reasoning to get rid of XP so quick. Sure, Mac OS's look nicer, but looks aren't everything. And really the pretty looks of Vista are the only thing its got on XP, and honestly they could of gave the Vista theme to XP without releasing a new OS. I for one am fine with using the old "playschool plastic" Windows XP for now. I don't think I'll ever go back to Vista.

I still have no idea what the processes do. I'd shut them down, end up killing Windows and having to restart the computer. (you can do the same thing in XP, but at least you have a rough idea what you're shutting down.)

You need two gigs to really get the basic..."enjoyment" of Vista. At the store, they recommended to me to get at least three or more to get the full experience. XP? Dances in the corner with two. And has jazz hands.

I care nothing about the looks. I'm all about stability and performance, so I cranked XP (and Vista!) back to classic Windows. Sure, it's boring, but it runs nicely.

Tip: Don't shut down "explorer.exe" Ever. It takes up most of the CPU, but it is, in fact, Windows itself. And shutting down processes just because you don't know what they are, is also not a good idea.

Tekka wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:

Tekka wrote:I never even got to try it, since I had Vista Basic. Honestly, why pay more for Ultimate just so you can run things slower.

I'm not even sure why they created Vista Basic. You need everything that Home Premium and Ultimate offer, to truly get the most of Vista.

It's like giving someone a car without wheels. Sure, it looks nice, has a few neat features, but just won't get you anywhere without costing you more money.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at there. Basic had all the functionality that was needed without all the extras bogging it down... yet still managed to get bogged down.

So what is Basic missing that is so vital?

I have Basic. It runs quite nicely.

I gotta tell you Shadowman. You are literally the only person I have ever met that has gotten that damned OS to run correctly. Ever.

Iron-Man wrote:I gotta tell you Shadowman. You are literally the only person I have ever met that has gotten that damned OS to run correctly. Ever.

That's what happeneds when you only use your PC for video games.

Zing. And Getter runs through the topic to deliver a critical blow at a most opportune time.

GetterDragun wrote:

Iron-Man wrote:I gotta tell you Shadowman. You are literally the only person I have ever met that has gotten that damned OS to run correctly. Ever.

That's what happeneds when you only use your PC for video games.

It seems to work out just fine for me.

I do have an occasional...let's call them "Semi-crashes," because nothing is really lost, and it pretty much corrects itself in just short of ten seconds. Kind of annoying, but it could be worse.

I was using Vista Business. Its supposed to be the equivalent of XP pro. It has about everything Ultimate has except the Media Center interface. I dunno Basic might be the way to go, since it doesn't have Aero. Aero might just be the problem!

Anyway if Vista works fine on your PC than more power to you! Didn't work for me. My friend at work has no problems running Vista, however he's got 4GB of DDR2, 2 ATI 4850's in Crossfire, and an AMD Phenom 9850 black edition. He put Vista on because Gears of War was not running properly on DX9. However he did just recently switch to a dual boot setup. Mostly because his printer does not have Vista drives available.

What most people who want a stable os and want run the adobe sweet of products end up doing is going to a mac because it does everything you want it to without the all the headaches that you seem to be deal with. I don't yet own a mac but most of my friends who work with adobe day in and day out do and swear by it plus now you can duel boot with any version of windows, and it will run really smooth without all the crashes you have reported.