Comments on: Damn Small Linux crushes Windows Vista’s min requirements

By: Mina

Mina — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:57:59 +0000

DSL works on a HUGE variety of machines. I use it as the main OS on a 863 MHz Pentium III processor with 128 MB RAM. I can do anything I want on it, with no danger. Still, I’m careful anyway.

The thing I don’t like about Vista, is that it forces people to go out and buy new computers that they can’t afford. and the price of Vista is insane. The computers necessary for Vista are ridiculously overpowered, over-eye-candied, and its not a secure OS. Windows should have been overhauling their OS so its more secure. They don’t need to keep doing things the same way, continuing to be prone to viruses, malware, badware, craplets, you name it. It needs to be secure, self-contained, and cheap. I won’t say free, because Windows isn’t Open Source.

Seriously, your average computer person just wants functionality and security and everyday stuff. Not heavy stuff like high-notch games, commandlines, missing drivers, missing plugins, error messages that can’t be read without a degree in computerese, nor constant upgrading. They want things to be easy to learn, easy to use, easy to understand, and a bit fast. If its blazing fast, that’s a bonus.

By: DeviousGeek

DeviousGeek — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:10:52 +0000

Wow… owned.

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:45:26 +0000

I’ve used DSL from a USB flash drive a far amount over the last year or so. It will run as a desktop replacement, if you want to do the mundane tasks of browsing the web, email, light multimedia playback. It is far from a brick OS. And Vista a Ferrari??? A better analogy would be if you gave everyone on one side of town a high end sport car, and the other side the Toyota. Let them grocery shop, take the kids to soccer practice and school. Gamers and folks doing video editing and the like, would quickly hate the Toyota, the rest would not be real happy with the higher operating expenses, complexity and touchiness of the sports car.

By: The Wombat

The Wombat — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:15:35 +0000

Actually you would need performance increase of 84.0336 times (not even taking into consideration the cash outlays involved) rather than 98.81% improvement (slightly less than 2x) to get the comparable….
Or from a footprint point of view, 20GM/50MB = 400 time the size, and Vista doesnt even come with a word processor!
And if you look at it from a cash POV then Vista (at any over inflated price) is infinitely more expensive than DSL – which is free. For rather less than an infinite improvement.
Hmmmm

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:17:35 +0000

Don’t forget that putting Vista on a PC that just meets the minium spec gives you a PC that only a masochistic would want to use.

By: JD

JD — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:05:28 +0000

This was a very good article…and it sure makes ya WTF at Vista a bit, but it’s not a fair comparison. This comparison is like saying a Ferrari is faster than a Toyota Corolla. DSL is NOT a desktop replacement distro, it’s meant to be on machines that normally would be able to only run like Windows 95 (so basically bricks). What would be better is to compare the Debian or Ubuntu system requirements to Vista.