Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
> ____/ [H]omer on Wednesday 31 October 2007 20:44 : \____
>> Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
>>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=897&num=3
>>
>> "For the Linux testing we had used Fedora 7"
>>
>> Cool!
>
> Yes, Michael, thought about Ubuntu at some stages, but he's with
> Fedora at heart. I communicate with him quite a lot.
>
>>> How about some second-class gaming under Microsoft Windows Vista?
>>
>> No thanks, I'll stick to /real/ operating systems.
>
> I haven't used Windows in a very long time, but do you reckon that
> WGA popups grab focus away from the game?
Dunno about WGA, since I religiously avoid any Malware from Microsoft by
turning off and disabling the stealth update services (WAUS and BITS),
and have thankfully never been compromised by the WGA virus.
The last time I booted the laptop into XP, was about a month ago IIRC. I
didn't play any games, but I did watch some videos. I'm "lucky" enough
to be a Sky subscriber, which means I get the "privilege" of downloading
programmes that I've already paid to watch and record on TV, encumbered
by Draconian Restrictions Mangling.
The first thing I do with those encumbered files is strip the DRM with
fairuse4wm, save them to the server, reboot into Fedora, then run my
"podit" bash conversion script to make them iPod compatible. I'll then
watch those show on the iPod in bed late at night, with the iPod's timer
set, in case I fall asleep with it still on (as often happens).
However, the download process, which is actually a proprietary P2P
service called KService by Kontiki Inc., is bloody excruciatingly slow
(mainly because my ISP spits on Net Neutrality by discriminating against
P2P traffic - a process they euphemistically refer to as "traffic
shaping" - even if it's a perfectly /legal/ and commercial P2P service
like the one from Sky), so I tend to pass the time watching videos using
MPlayer for Windows. I can't /stand/ that WMP bloatware - it freezes the
whole damn system for 10 - 15 seconds every time it starts up, and has a
nasty habit of "updating" licences and other dubious components in the
background, usually with rather nasty consequences.
Anyway, back to your question, the point is that when you're watching
videos in fullscreen mode under XP, regardless of whether you use
MPlayer, WMP or things like PowerDVD and Nero Showtime, you get
constantly interrupted by popups; from things like Google Desktop (news
alerts), the AV (your virus definitions have been updated), the firewall
(blocked attempted connection to xx.xx.xx.xx); and dozens of other
stupid "alerts", that just serve to turn the average user into some kind
of mindless automaton who just clicks "OK" without even bothering to
read the dialogue box.
> What about forced updates
See "disable WAUS and BITS" comment.
> (and reboots that cannot be avoided
Oh I used to get more than my fair share of those, from "Windows must
now restart because the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service terminated
unexpectedly." (a.k.a. Blaster), to inexplicable hard resets with no
warning. The Microsoft Malware instigated reboots are thankfully
something I've mostly managed to avoid, at least ever since I cut my
system's umbilical link to the mother ship.
> unless you're logged in as Admin... recall David Berlind's video and
> widely-publicised rant).
You mean this?:
Video: Vista forces unwanted reboots
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39288432,00.htm
Just watched it now. I hadn't seen it before, but then I have zero
interest in Vista (like most people), other than an interest in ensuring
that it infects as few systems as possible. I was already aware of the
issue anyway (again, like most people).
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "[Microsoft] are willing to lose money for years and years just to
| make sure that you don't make any money, either." - Bob Cringely.
| - http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2007/07/cringely-the-un.html
`----
Fedora release 7 (Moonshine) on sky, running kernel 2.6.22.1-41.fc7
01:14:49 up 84 days, 1:09, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.05, 0.10
|
|
