Windows 7 Milestone 3 Build 6801 Review

You get an install error if there isn't a swap on the drive where setup will refuse to continue. I started using Ubuntu with 7.10. Anytime i've done a new install there had to be one. I havent done a fresh install from 8.04/8.10 (only upgraded) so things may have changed since than.
 
Makaveli213 said:
How does Ubuntu Need a Swap? I have installed Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 jsut fine without a swap partition and never had any install errors. Is this somthing that they just added to 8.10?
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Ask that question at the Ubuntu forums (using the exact words you just said...), and you will see about a billion answers from regular Ubuntu users, saying that you do need a swap partition (even with Ubuntu 8.10)! :grinning:

Ubuntu Forums

Sure, you could probably get by without one (maybe...), but its better to have one...:wink: Your OS will run better with it...:smile: Just take my advice and get a swap partition, and you will most likely begin to see a performance boost...:wink:

-Coolname007
 
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Coolname007 said:
Ask that question at the Ubuntu forums (using the exact words you just said...), and you will see about a billion answers from regular Ubuntu users, saying that you do need a swap partition (even with Ubuntu 8.10)! :grinning:

Ubuntu Forums

Sure, you could probably get by without one (maybe...), but its better to have one...:wink: Your OS will run better with it...:smile: Just take my advice and get a swap partition, and you will most likely begin to see a performance boost...:wink:

-Coolname007
Click to expand...

I noticed no hamper at all. Even now that i am running a Swap. With the systems now a days having much more RAM than ever before i dont see the need to have a SWAP. I currently have 3GB of RAM and i notice no performance increase over having a SWAP partition then not having one.

When i update my system and have 6GB of RAM i bet it will be exactly the same.

If i had 1GB of RAM then yeah. But having 3GB and Linux not using even half of that even under heavy load, i see no reason why i should use swap despite what they say on the Ubuntu forums. When i first switched i even asked Guru and he said the same thing.

Here is where myself and Guru talk about it during the Ubuntu 7.10 topics.

Computer Guru said:
Nope.

I'd never set up swap before (2GB memory here), and this time I did - no performance benefit.
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Guru said the same thing that i have above. He had even less RAM than me. Yet he still says Performance gain was nill.

Of course the Ubuntu Forums are going to say SWAP is necessary. Just like Microsoft is going to say that spending money on Windows Vista is necessary before moving onto Windows 7.:brows:
 
I've done a bit of delving around (like I advise all of our new posters to do before flying blind) and you might be interested in this from Ubuntu help
Should I reinstall with more swap?

  • Definitely no.
  • With the 2.6 kernel, "a swap file is just as fast as a swap partition."(Wikipedia:tongueout:aging, LKML).
How do I add more swap?

  • Usually, people associate swap with a swap partition, maybe because they've been proposed to create a swap partition on install. In fact any file can be used as a swapping device, be it a partition or a conventional file. If you're considering responsiveness, my advice: add more RAM. Swapping to a partition or a file won't change anything. <LI class=gap>We will add more swap by adding a swap file. <LI class=gap>
    Adding more swap is a four-step process :
    • a- Creating a file the size you want. <LI class=gap>b- Formatting that file to create a swapping device. <LI class=gap>c- Adding the swap to the running system.
    • d- Making the change permanent.
  • We will consider (as an example) a 512 Mb swap need.
    <LI class=gap>
    a- Creating a file the size you want :

    • We will create a /mnt/512Mb.swap swap file.sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/512Mb.swap bs=1M count=512
      • What is important here is count=512, which means we want our file to contain 512 blocks of bs=1M, which means block size = 1 MegaBytes.

      • Be careful *not* to do this dd of=/mnt/512Mb.swap bs=1M seek=512 count=0
        • Though the file grows to 512Mb immediately,it will have holes that makes it unusable.
    <LI class=gap>
    b- Formatting that file to create a swapping device :sudo mkswap /mnt/512Mb.swap<LI class=gap>
    c- Adding the swap to the running system :sudo swapon /mnt/512Mb.swap
    • You can see with "cat /proc/meminfo" that your additionnal swap is now available.
    <LI class=gap>
    d- Making the change permanent :

    • edit your /etc/fstab: gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

    • and add this line at the end of the file: /mnt/512Mb.swap none swap sw 0 0
    • save and reboot
I think I'll do without a separate partition.
 
Thanks for the information there Terry. From what I've been believed into thinking from the installer complaining when I do installs led me to think it is necessary and the fact that Windows compalins if you don't have a page file at login, but I guess appraently it isn't. I am going to go ahead and burn the latest Ubuntu disc for my next install instead of upgrading and see what happens. We're all trying to learn more about Linux, so I guess we're in the same boat here...
 
I'm back after a while away.
Here I am posting from IE8 inside W7.
Defragged and shrank my backup partition after removing a lot of other stuff from it, and Vista managed to produce more than enough space for me to create a 30Gb W7 and 25Gb spare for Ubuntu.
Labelled and formatted my new W7 partition.
Booted the W7 disk, and told it to install to my new partition, and everything went perfectly.
Windows 7 duly appeared, updated itself with all the drivers for my hardware and offered to connect to the AV provider of my choice. I clicked on AVG, then altered the URL to free.avg.com and let it install AVG8 for me.
Changed all the letter assignments in disk management to match my other systems (except Vista and W7 now mirror each other as C: and I: ) and then took out the DVD and hit restart.
Went back into Vista without the option for W7, started EasyBCD, added a Vista/Longhorn entry to the BCD pointing at I: which it wouldn't take at face value, specifying U. Altered it with change settings to I: again, and here we are - a perfect dual boot with the minimum of effort.
Now to fill the unused space with Ubuntu.
Let's see if that's as easy.
 
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Well you don't want to know my story... i've been messing with fixing vista/xp all day cause I wanted to reduce my vista partition and use the space with additional unallocated space on the partition. Unfortunately it didn't let me use the free space/unallocated together since vista was a logical drive. So in order to fix it the way I wanted I would need to re-install Vista which I certainly didn't want to do.

I'm hapyy to be talking from XP now thanks to Acronis and finally got it setup so I can put on W7. This is a perfect example of why it is a good idea to backup your stuff people...
 
This was the first time I've ever installed a system with a broadband modem connected live.
Doesn't it make life easier !
Previously I've had to let setup finish, then create an internet account, then run WUD, then install all the drivers, then download and install AV, etc etc.
This time setup just plodded on and did the lot for me.
 
Yeah, just got mine installed (talking from IE8 in Win 7 right now) and at first glance I am extremely pleased. I think it is the first time I've ever seen a Windows installer pick up a laptops wireless card right away and offer to setup connectivity to a wireless network during the installation. I thought for sure I'd haft to boot back into Vista and get the driver, but this was not the case. It even recognized my video drivers and setup aero immediately. It sleeps right out of the box without me having to install the chipset! It also got audio right away. I havent had the need as of yet to go download any other drivers :smile:

There are some things though that are a extreme bummer though. Changing the dekstop from properties requires you click a link at the bottem of the page which at first glance you don't even notice. It may be just me here but I havent gotten used to just icons for the taskbar out of the box, but this can easily be changed. The start menu properties have already shown to be a letdown. For some stupid reason they took out the quick link settings to your default internet browser and e-mail programs.

I do however like IE8's new setup wizard. It is a heck a lot more intuitive than displaying some page a user would most likely exit out of. The security settings for your zones are also a little bit better for the defaults than in IE7. The windows drag technique towards the top half way works. It doesn't line up the window side-by-side like I was hoping. And the old grouping method and side-by-side or stacked isn't there anymore (I use that feature all the time!) The new tab groups in IE8 are a must with the clutter users got open so I'm pleased with that.

For any of you that want to think about giving Win 7 a try, you don't need to buy a new license of AVG just for testing. I tried the free version myself that hasn't been tested for Win 7 yet and it works just as fine as the others.

All and all I'm liking it so far, but I'm already having some trouble finding things because they supposedly made them easier to work with. This too can give an OS a bad rep just as anything if users don't know how to do stuff they used to know how to do in previous versions. I just hope its not a big deal as the new tab interface introduced with office 07 if MS knows whats good for them.
 
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The quick-launch is integrated into the taskbar now. Just start the program and right click on the Icon, then fix it to the taskbar and it stays even when you stop running it.
Conversely, you can unfix the media player etc that MS puts there by default.
 
Yeah thats how apples done it with thier dock in OS X, so I guess MS is catching up on to the idea users who do a lot simitameously want it. But because of that, I think they had to take out the grouping, side-by-side, and stacked capabilities for working with multiple windows at once. With the old windows, I could close 10 or more windows in my taskbar at once. Now you're forced to close each one individually. Quite a pain and timewaster...
 
I confess to being a great fan of the quick-launch.
Like all things new, one tends to prefer the old ways, but I'll give it a chance and see how it goes.
 
I can't tell whether to give Win 7 a A+ or D- on security. One comment I left out last night was the fact they made you give a hint with your user account during setup. It used to be optional, but users who do input a password are required to give one now. This could be either good or bad depending on the user. Good so they'll remember it but bad if they expose thier password with an easy to translate hint. And looking through this new "homegroup" feature and more share settings with everything setup to share by default even if it is for private networks only is kinda concerning...

I can already tell there's gonna be a lot more group policies needed to lock these newer machines down in the public setting.
 
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Hey, is there a torrent download for Win 7? :smile: I finally broke down, and decided I'd try it out...:grinning: But the regular download says it has five days left, which can be a problem when downloading it from the browser downloader on a laptop! :wink:

-Coolname007
 
No. MS won't use torrents.
My broadband at 6.9Mb/s took over an hour for 3.1Gb (x64), but it was running at about 10% some of the time (their server load I expect).
A 56kb/s modem would take over 5 days.
 
Download the 32-bit so its a gig smaller and takes less time to get it unless you specifically want x64. You need decent bandwidth. Download it using your .passport or msn account at like 2 or 3 in the morning. Best time to hit them if its still even available. They said it would only be for the first 2.5 million. They want to hit only a small audience so the reports aren't overwhelming on beta feedback. Besides, thier not just gonna offer thier product over torrents...
 
kairozamorro said:
Download the 32-bit so its a gig smaller and takes less time to get it unless you specifically want x64. You need decent bandwidth. Download it using your .passport or msn account at like 2 or 3 in the morning. Best time to hit them if its still even available. They said it would only be for the first 2.5 million. They want to hit only a small audience so the reports aren't overwhelming on beta feedback. Besides, thier not just gonna offer thier product over torrents...
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hmm...thanks for the info, and from you too, Terry. :smile: Actually, I do indeed want 64-bit, which is why I chose it to download instead of 32-bit! :tongueout: My hardware supports it (I think...), and this is the first time I will be trying 64-bit of a Microsoft OS. :wink: All the rest of the times, on all my computers, I just used 32-bit (except for Linux...on Ubuntu, I chose 64-bit, and it works fine).

-Coolname007
 
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Yeah don't see why they even bother with 32-bit now... seems so yesterday because these newer systems are getting much more ram these days and to take advantage of the latest the more support for memory at the OS level is a must. I don't know about the other major OEMs but Dell is starting to offer 64-bit as the default. You used to haft to pay extra or not even have that option.
 
kairozamorro said:
Yeah don't see why they even bother with 32-bit now... seems so yesterday because these newer systems are getting much more ram these days and to take advantage of the latest the more support for memory at the OS level is a must. I don't know about the other major OEMs but Dell is starting to offer 64-bit as the default. You used to haft to pay extra or not even have that option.
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Yeah...my Dell Studio 1535 laptop came with 4GBs of Shared Dual-channel DDR2 RAM (though admittedly that wasn't the default...I think the default option was 3 GBs, but I had mine specially made!:booyah:smile:, 320 GB SATA hard drive (which I dont believe was the default option either...I think the default was less gigs), Vista Home Premium (pre-installed), 256 MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 video card, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (2.16 GHz), and a whole lot of other cool features that were just added bonuses! :brows:

Here's my model, in case you want to look firsthand at the specs: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop_studio_15?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Again, I had mine custom-made, so the specs you see there might be slightly different then in my actual computer. :wink:

-Coolname007
 
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