Editors Note: If you missed the earlier parts of the series, read them here: Part One and Part Two.
When last we left my exploration of Vista vs. Ubuntu/MEPIS Linux, I had the system up and running in a dual-boot environment.
Now, came the interesting part: seeing how each operating system would work, or not, with the hardware on my HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360n PC.
When it was first built, in early 2006, this was a high-end system. Today, in early 2007, its still a powerful system; but, its in no way, shape, or form a cutting-edge PC. In other words, neither Vista nor MEPIS should have too much trouble with the hardware. Right?
Well, I was half-right.
To start with the very basics, neither operating system had any trouble using the PCs hyper-threaded 2.8GHz Pentium D 920 dual-core processor, 4MB of L2 cache, 800MHz front-side bus, and 2GB of DDR (double-data-rate) RAM. Both recognized and appropriately used those system resources.
For the purposes of my evaluation, I didnt make the best possible theoretical use of the hardware, however, because, on this 64-bit system, I used 32-bit versions of both OSes.
I did this because both Vista and Linux still have teething pains on 64-bit systems. Theyll run just fine, but there are nowhere near enough 64-bit hardware drivers or applications for either one.
/zimages/1/28571.gifRead the full story on DesktopLinux: A Vista vs. Linux Matchup – Part 3: Hardware Wars
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