Windows 7 Works with a VIA C7.. well somewhat

Since my default machine (an Athlon 64) decided to go get fried, I’ve had to use my fallback machine, which is a Via C7. This C7 in paticular is 1500MHz, has 128KB of L2 cache, and features the MMX,SSE,SSE2, and SSE3 instruction extentions, while my Athlon 64 was 1800MHz, had 512KB of L2 machine and featured all the instruction additions that the C7 does plus 3dnow and x86_64.

Compared to that machine.. this thing is slow. My old CPU counted PI to 1 million digits in around 40 seconds. This bad boy? Over 360 seconds. Now that I’ve got the fact that is slow drilled into your head, you probably wonder if this CPU’ll handle 7. It does. But not extrodinarily so. It seems XP is the best [Microsoft] OS for this beast.

Ubuntu Linux. It changes my views on Linux.

Last month I posted that I was thinking about switching to Linux before 2009, later I then decided to not switch, and that has pretty much been my opinion on it until today. Earlier this morning (around 3:30), I felt like taking Ubuntu for a spin, again. As you know, I’m not a big fan of eye candy. But when I first booted up the 8.04 LiveCD I just HAD to say “Wow”. The interface was just that good, plus it’s based on GNOME, which I just CAN NOT stand, so it amazing me even more. The color scheme. The desktop background. It just all comes together. Plus the LiveCD is faster then Windows XP, and actually rivals my 2000 installation in speed. This is nothing short of amazing. I may actually eat my words and install Ubuntu.

Here’s a screenie of the blog using FF3 on Ubuntu:

I enabled the subpixel smoothing option, so it probably won’t look as great on CRT’s.

2009: Year of the Linux Desktop (or not)?

I’m getting kinda sick of writing rants about how Windows 2000 is great or about the 1984-ish DRM schemes Holywood and software publishers think up, so I’ve decided to do something a bit different. As you know, I talk about Linux alot. Deep down inside I actually would love to use it as my operating system of choice, but due to my needs I can’t, just yet anyway. But others with much less complex needs can, and probably should. You might ask, why. Stability? Nope. Price. Due to the economic recession happening, people want things for as cheap as possible. People don’t want to have to spend $200, or even $100, on an operating system. And because of this, I feel that more people will be switching to Linux. 2009 may actually BE the year of the Linux desktop.