Possible Problems with Celestia and Windows Vista!

Spaceman Spiff · Post #21by **Spaceman Spiff** » 31.07.2005, 08:45

Yes, but do you know why Richard Stallman wrote the GNU and the GNU GPL? Even if you do, I would hope others become aware directly from what RMS writes...

It might be better to direct people to the root and origin of the matter than N+ variations of a theme, many of which masquerade as giving freedom but don't. I'm trying to inspire people about how to secure Celestia's future. Never mind the commentary, read TFA!

Spiff.

hank · Post #22by **hank** » 31.07.2005, 22:00

d.m.falk wrote:(The WORST OS I have ever used, for what it's worth- VAX/VMS. :P )

Consider yourself very lucky. (You obviously never used IBM MVS/TSO...)

- Hank

Don. Edwards · Post #23by **Don. Edwards** » 31.07.2005, 23:43

UPDATE TIME!!!

As I feared Celestia does not run in Windows Vista at all. I have even installed nVida's Alpha drivers for it. There is supposed to be OpenGL support but allot of it is missing. If anyone knows a list of the vital nVidia driver files that are for OpenGL and can get the list to me so I can load them into Vista and see if this fixes things. The last resort will be to load the latest XP drivers on Vista and see if all works. I have no doubt this will probably work but it will break many of the new GUI effects. On another note Vista?€™s interface is really quite nice and it is a little faster than XP at opening files and some apps. Boot times are faster.

Now on to another line of thought, I probably will load some distro of Linux on my spare computer and play with Celestia on it so that I can at least learn.

These days we do have fewer choices when it comes to an OS. I love how Microsoft want to close the PC platform and make it like Apple and Apple is shifting over to being more the PC. I think I might have fallen through a mirror somewhere along the line. Everything has gotten curiouser and curiouser.

Don.

bdm · Post #24by **bdm** » 01.08.2005, 01:45

Looks like Don has found a bug in Vista. Isn't beta testing wonderful?

symaski62 · Post #25by **symaski62** » 01.08.2005, 02:29

bdm wrote:Looks like Don has found a bug in Vista. Isn't beta testing wonderful?

TROP STOP 2.5Go DVD

M vista !!

bye

d.m.falk · Post #26by **d.m.falk** » 01.08.2005, 03:07

hank wrote:
d.m.falk wrote:(The WORST OS I have ever used, for what it's worth- VAX/VMS. )
Consider yourself very lucky. (You obviously never used IBM MVS/TSO...)

- Hank

Well, let's see- The first computer I ever used was a TRS-80, one of the first schoo computers ever bought from educational money in California (1979)... That was in junior high (now called "middle school").

Then I used an Apollo workstation in high school back in '82...

Then got my own DOS computer- a "cheap" laptop from Radio Shack at the time (1991)...

I have used, at various times since then, Amiga (AmigaOS 1.3 and 2.0), DOS 3.0-6.0, Windows 3.1, 3.11, 98SE and ME; SCO and BSD Unix, Solaris, and Linux, all using the "csh" command-line shell; the aforementioned VAX/VMS, the KNOPPIX Linux distro, MacOS 9.0-10.2, BeOS, and Pocket PC from 2.0 to Windows Mobile 2003.

And believe it or not, I don't consider myself a computer geek, nor am I a gamer.

d.m.f.

Don. Edwards · Post #27by **Don. Edwards** » 01.08.2005, 06:16

Another Update!

I am typing this from Vista. Let me tell you something, IE 7 is as slow as mosasis on a cold day. Access and webpage rendering is so slow. The good news is Celestia will run on Vista if real Forceware drivers are installed. But as I figured it breaks the high end Aero features. I am sure there is a way to merge the drivers together. I am keeping an eye out in various news groups and beta info sights and forums on any such changes.

Don.

bh · Post #28by bh » 01.08.2005, 23:30

Just a thought...why get Vista if celestia runs ok on xp?...hehe...my mac is on it's way!

regards...bh.

symaski62 · Post #29by **symaski62** » 01.08.2005, 23:57

bh wrote:Just a thought...why get Vista if celestia runs ok on xp?...hehe...my mac is on it's way!

regards...bh.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.mspx

:roll:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

MSDN :/

Don. Edwards · Post #30by **Don. Edwards** » 02.08.2005, 01:48

bh,
There will be many reasons to upgrade to Windows Vista. This is like asking why in the world you would you upgrade to OS X Tiger if you have OS X Panther and it works just fine. Because in the Mac world, Tiger was a fundamental update to the OS that added many features and security fixes. The same can and will be said of Windows Vista. It is a fundamental system upgrade that incorporates a great many security fixes along with added features and an updated driver platform. Of course some of those features are not being looked forward to such DRM (Digital Rights Management). But someone will find a way to break it or get around it as always
The other major problem will be XP's future support by Microsoft. They have a habit of EOL (end of lifeing) their operating systems as soon as the new one gets a decent foothold. I just can't see Microsoft changing tactics any time soon.

Another reason is that I simply don't see OS X coming to the PC platform any time soon. Or at least until some group can crack Apples lock on it and get it booting on regular PCs in the future. Trust me this will be done by using the guts of Darwin to it.

And I personally am not going to pay $1500 or more US funds for an Apple PC when I can build my own for 1/2 or even 1/3 the price and it would end up faster and more powerful for the money. It may not run OS X but it will be running an OS that is compatible with almost all of my software and games. People who preach switching to the Mac platform NEVER take into account all the software and games that would have to be repurchased when a move like this is made. I personally would have to spend about another $1000 to change over all my software. That?€™s the biggest roadblock for Apple at this point. Hopefully they, or someone else will build a utility that will allow Windows programs to run under OS X in a native mode without an emulation layer to slow things down. When this happens and it all works very well than I might make the switch back to the Mac full time.

Don.

Unfound · Post #31by **Unfound** » 02.08.2005, 02:23

er...just two quick questions here: what is Solaris, what is so great about Mac, and are either free?

d.m.falk · Post #32by **d.m.falk** » 02.08.2005, 03:02

Depends on the software you're using. Some might have simple license migration programs, while for others, you could look into alternative applications that can work with your existing files.

There is very little I have found on a PC that I can't do on a Mac, thankfully! (I'm no gamer, though, be that as it may...)

Let's say you use MS Office on your PC. I do. There are two alternatives here- Buy MS Office:Mac or I could get OpenOffice.org for free.

Truetype font and Flash animation creation? Same thing- I can get commercial software for both, but there's also open software for OS X that does both.

Most open-source Unix/Linux tools have or can be ported to the Mac with ease..

So why migrate?

OS X is stable, not nearly as resource-hungry, and it works.

d.m.f.

d.m.falk · Post #33by **d.m.falk** » 02.08.2005, 03:14

Unfound wrote:er...just two quick questions here: what is Solaris, what is so great about Mac, and are either free?

Solaris is Sun's workstation OS. It's Unix-like, but it's not Unix or Linux.

Until recently (ie: with version 9 or 10) it had been commerciual, like SCO Unix, but now it's free to download, or you can buy a Solaris "LiveCD" for a small fee. It comes with two desktops (one being Sun's Java Desktop Environment).

Mac OS X is proprietary, only runs on Apple Macintosh (G3 or better) (or under an emulator, if you're lucky), and is commercial. Its core is BSD Unix.

You can find used Macs cheaply that run OS X. Ideally, run OS X 10.2 or better- It really started getting good under 10.2 "Jaguar".

OS X is admittedly easy to use, but, thankfully, it's not Windows!

d.m.f.
(Not really happy about Steve Jobs' direction for the Mac to go Intel....)

Don. Edwards · Post #34by **Don. Edwards** » 02.08.2005, 08:12

Well I won't be posting anything on Vista for a while. After 5 days of farting around with it I have to say, Microsoft better get there act togather. You would think that after four years of development, even though they started from scratch back in November, that this beta would run pretty good. Wrong! I got my first BSOD (blue screen of death) today and it has been all down hill from there. The boot time has droped to almost 2+ minutes long. The sound quit working and when I got it up and running again it now sounds terible. I won't even go into getting the thing to work at my resolution of choice. I ihacked the nVidia driver .inf file to add my resolution of 1280x960 and I have a hell of a time getting back to that resolution once something has been changed. So I have done my part and made several reports to Microsoft and the beta will live on a hard drive on my second system for the time being or until better driver options come along. So now I will move on to other things that need finishing.

Don.

d.m.falk · Post #35by **d.m.falk** » 02.08.2005, 08:24

"We don't have to do better because we own you."

d.m.f.

Spaceman Spiff · Post #36by **Spaceman Spiff** » 02.08.2005, 08:31

Don,

I don't know if I'm accurate on this, but I've read that it is a DRM plan by MS, etc. to play only degraded audio, video and other media, if you do not present the OS with the correct DRM 'keys', proving that you are licensed to play that media (or rather, you've paid that quality premium). Your bug reports will probably satisfy MS that their DRM technology worked...

By 'boot time' do you mean until BIOS is over, or until NTLoader is over, or until Vista is ready for you to click? That last time-to-readiness increases the more software you install.

Spiff.

Don. Edwards · Post #37by **Don. Edwards** » 02.08.2005, 20:15

I talking boot time as from start up to the time I can actualy do something on the system. At first it loaded in about 1 minute 30 seconds. I have a SCSI card and an ATA card that add there bois info to the boot proccess so they add some time. But the load time for the OS itself has just gotten bad to worse. From what I am reading there seems to be be a problem with the OS after is runs for 3 or 4 days. Things start to get buggy. Mine made it to 4 1/2 days then things started to go wrong. One issue is that I am using a slower 20gb drive for the install. But to see the boot time increase this much. A defrage may help and I may try this but I am sure I am looking at starting all over with what I have learned. Unfortunatly Bootvis doesn't work under Vista. But I did get TweakUI to work in Win2000 mode of all things.
Betas, got to love them.

Don.

Post #38by **Christophe** » 02.08.2005, 21:11

d.m.falk wrote:Solaris is Sun's workstation OS. It's Unix-like, but it's not Unix or Linux.

Until recently (ie: with version 9 or 10) it had been commerciual, like SCO Unix, but now it's free to download, or you can buy a Solaris "LiveCD" for a small fee. It comes with two desktops (one being Sun's Java Desktop Environment).

What? Solaris not Unix? There is some confusion here, Solaris is both derived from the original BSD code and fully licenced to use the UNIX trademark as are the other big commercial Unices: HP-UX (HP), AIX (IBM), Irix (SGI), Tru64 (aka Digital Unix - HP/Compaq/DEC), etc...

FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc are Unix in the sense that they derive from the BSD code but they are not licenced to use the trademark. Linux is neither a derivative, nor licenced but in all other meanings of the term it is Unix.

Solaris is not only free to download, it is also free software (according to the OSI).

See Solaris and Unix at Wikipedia as well as this nice Unix family tree.

Unfound · Post #39by **Unfound** » 03.08.2005, 03:16

OK, I promise this will be my last annoying off-topic post. Were can I get tons of UNBIASED info (including comparisons to Windows) on Solaris and Mac OS X?

EDIT: Ok, I looked at Sun's website, but I'm confused. Is Solaris for the home computer user? It seems to be useful to businesses only, and complex to boot.

Don. Edwards · Post #40by **Don. Edwards** » 03.08.2005, 04:43

Well I downloaded all 6 iso's and I never have been able to get Solaris to install on any of the machines I have. Now Sun's Java Desktop Linux is quite nice but somewhat limited in features and support for third party apps. But it is one of the better looking Linux distro I have seen. Ny favorite Linux do far is Xandros.

Don.