>
> Pat,
>
>         Good observations and I couldn't agree more.
>
> Part of the frustration with Vista is that its bloated and runs
> considerably  slower than XP on the same hardware.
> That and the fact that a number of programs won't run at all or crash
> randomly under Vista was enough  to make me a Linux convert.
>


And they said the same about XP when it came out, and it overnight made
slower machines with <500MB RAM obsolete!

Linux can be configured to run as much or as little as necessary. Don't
need the overhead of running a graphical interface? Then don't run one.


As an example of Linux allowing the use of older machinery, currently I'm
using a P2/400MHz with 256MB as :-

DNS Server
Mail (SMTP and IMAP with a Webmail interface)
NTP server
Streaming MP3 audio (to listen to my 500kHz grabber RX audio over the web)


I can talk to it via SSH - so no need for the overhead of a GUI.

I have used in the past a 486/66 (which is still alive and kicking and
serves as a headless "toy machine" for learning/testing various things at
no risk to my main machines) with 48MB RAM that happily ran as a DNS
server, firewall/NAT router, DHCP server and NTP server.

My main desktop is an old P4/2.6GHz and it runs a full Gnome destop as
well as running SpecLab (under Wine) I also use it as DNS server, NTP
server, print and File server (Cups/Samba). Until Sunday it was also the
streaming audio and Mail server too!

The laptop that I'm typing this on (via a webmail session to my above
mentioned mail server - while sitting in front of the woodstove - wifi,
marvellous) is a P2/400MHz with 256MB RAM. It happily runs XFCE desktop
and I can surf the net, listen to streamed audio and run several different
remote SSH and VNC login sessions to my other machines.

All my boxes are old, second (or 3rd or more) hand. I've never bought a
new PC, no need to keep up in the hardware arms race.

You can even (been there, bought the Tee shirt) completely re-compile the
OS kernel to add/remove functionality, to optimise it for your own needs.

Try setting all that up with Windows (XP or Vista) on this old, "obsolete"
equipment, even gnoring the cost of the OS licenses and of the software...

For an investigation I was running at work I set up 2 machines to capture
(automatically or under remote control) sound samples,from one of our VHF
Band 2 broadcast transmitters, convert them to MP3 and regularly FTP them
to a central server (or email them as attachments as necessary). The
remote "audio sampling" boxes were 486/66 and the central FTP server that
they sent their mp3 files was no more than a P2/400. All the software and
OS was free. A few small shell scripts were thrown together and off it
went....

If you're willing to learn some new ways of doing things (and I don't mean
programming - I can't do that), and as Radio Amateurs we should be willing
to do some "self-tuition" then Linux is a perfect platform.

Cheers,

John