Because Nouveau works on a more architectures than Windows has ever been ported to.

Technically not true, especially in the context of any platform that has NVidia hardware.

If you want low power, look at any of the Netbook and low power 'portable' market devices.

They run on a few Watts compared to something even like a Mini-ATX or Mac Mini desktop solution.

Pick an OS that knows how to handle the device's power management - some distributions suck at this, and some are smooth as butter. (Use something like Windows7 -trial copy- to baseline the power usage to help pick a distribution that gets close to what Windows7 does with power usage or beats it, as it is a good all around consumer baseline OS that does try to manage every power management trick in the book.)

You can even stick to a bland x86 architecture, making things a lot easier for you.

If you pick a netbook or low end laptop, use USB 'selective suspend' devices for storage, DVD/CDROM, etc. Also some of the low end power efficient laptops have eSATA, ExpressCard, etc.

Low power is what these devices were designed to do. (One caveat, make sure they have a 'smart' AC adapter, if not, the AC adapter will not cycle down, and so all the laptop side power saving won't have as dramatic gain.)

PS for a Server, a low end laptop is rather smart, as it can be folded away on your bookshelf next to your hub out of the way, and they also have built in battery backup for power outages and smart shutdown/restart - perfect for servers.

Good Luck...

If you want "close to the metal" POSIX API compatibility then there's Cygwin

Ok, but this is borderline 1990s thinking or a bit insane...

You would be better off telling the person to just use the SUA of NT and develop a full *nix OSS solution and ignore Win32. As this is effectively what you are getting with Cygwin, except the SUA of NT is a full BSD subsystem that DOES RUN AT METAL 'so to speak' and doesn't have all the horrible 'kludges' of Cygwin.

I mean seriously, I think people forget that NT does a very good V5 and BSD Unix already, that is far beyond POSIX compliance and yes even beyond Cygwin crap.

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To give a good answer to the OP, it would help to know what they are doing a bit more, as just knowing if they ware writing GUI or non-GUI code makes a BIG difference in picking a common or easily portable library. Also performance, what kind of performance do they need? Depending on what they are doing I could recommended truly using the SUA or Java or *gasp* .NET via Mono or QT or a ton of other solutions that do work and work well. Hell they might be doing an application can should be shoved into something like Silverlight.

The Xenos GPU is more than a DirectX 9.0c subset, even though this is what the average person will find if they only have Wiki information. The reason it was ORIGINALLY described as a DX9 subset, is that there was no equivalent terminology to describe the DirectX featureset used in the XBox 360 platform.

The Xenos was the first Unified Shader GPU and has all the hardware requirements of a DX10 and even most of a DX11 GPU technology. If you go look at DX11, you will see it is the FIRST PC Side DirectX technology that brings it on par with the XBox 360 feature set.

This means the Xenos of the XBox 360 is doing some DX10 functions and some of the DX11 features.

For example the XBox 360's development platform support GPU calculations which is what is in DX10 and the precursor to the more robust Direct Compute of DX11.

The XBox 360 also does tessellation, which is a feature of DX11 and something far beyond what a DX9 or DX10 card will do.

So I stand by what I said about the XBox 360.

Also NVidia's fight with Microsoft and DX10 was several battles that degraded the DX10 requirements along the process, and is why DX10.1 was introduced so some of the original DX10 features could still be offered by ATI as their hardware was ready.

NVidia's fight wasn't just about memory virtualization, which is one argument they lost, as Vista does do GPU memory virtualization, even on old hardware as it is not a DX10 technology.

Most of the 'newsy' fights about NVidia and Microsoft where about Vista Drivers on issues like the WDM implementation that gave more GPU scheduler control to the OS and Vista at a lower level. This is why there is a WDM 1.0, 1.1, and upcoming 2.0...

There have also been recent fights about Windows7 driver certification, as Microsoft wants WDM 1.1 fully implemented for Windows7 requirements, and are allowing NVidia extra time to get the WDM 1.1 drivers for the pre-8xxx series of their GPUs, which means the 6xxx and 7xxx series are still using WDM 1.0 drivers on Windows7 and knowing NVidia, they will kill off support these cards before they ever get WDM 1.1 fully implemented, even though the hardware is capable, but take a bit more work as they are not unified shader GPUs.

NVidia fought a lot of the DX10 features, and even didn't want to support the DX10's increased texture size and wanted to keep the DX9 texture limitations, which was insane, and they lost that fight.

So you have two areas where NVidia and Microsoft go back and forth, the DX10 and DX11 hardware requirements and the Vista and Win7 WDDM driver specifications.

PS Go look up more on the Xenos and the DX11 technologies and the articles about porting more easily between the platforms because of DX11 finally catches up to fully support the XBox 360 DirectX feature set.

So even if you want to call the XBox 360 and the Xenos running a Direct9.0c 'subset', considering it can do tessellation and many of the DX10 unified shader and computational tricks, it really is more of a 'superset' and closer to DX11 than any of the PC DirectX versions.

This is the official begining of the death of PhysX...

NVidia fought DirectX10 GPU computing/physics technologies, and got Microsoft to scale back DX10, which originally looked more like DX11, as DX11 is basically the technology the XBox 360 is using and what Microsoft wanted to make DX10.

However, NVidia threw a fit and because the 8xxx series of cards would not have been DX10 based on the first DX10 specifciations, Microsoft gave in when they should could have really messed up a full generation of NVidia GPU technology. (ATI has been ready to go with consume DX11 GPUs for several years, because they have the XBox 360 GPU technology Microsoft developed and gave back to ATI. -Although DX11 does have a few more features now that a few years have passed.)

When developers are already using Havok and DirectX technologies, and even DX10 will do quite a bit of GPU computing already, there is no need for PhysX anymore.

Developers will look at this move, and either abandon PhysX out of disgust or take NVidia at their word that PhysX is bugging, and can't be trusted to run on a system with another GPU rendering the video. (And neither view of NVidia is a good one.)

I thought the point of netbooks was to have a computer for accessing the internet and that's about it. Last I checked, XP could access the internet. I don't see the point in putting Windows 7 on your netbook at all.

Well, let me play devil's advocate and throw out some ideas for you...

1) Security, there truly is a major level of security between XP and Win7. This goes from the built in malware tools, to even IE running in protected mode so it is technically more secure than running Firefox or Chrome, as the browser doesn't even user level rights. (This is why the Flash and recent IE exploits you have read about (that can even affect OS X and Linux are IMMUNE on Vista or Win7 when running IE.) - I know, this is hard to hear and I hate saying it myself, but is true.

2) Network features. Running through the airport and having the new Win7/Vista networking stack features is freaking awesome, as it not only does really good at just hooking into the WiFi, but also remembers. So that if go back through Denver it knows not only how to connect (which all OSes should do), but it also knows how to classify the network and flips on the Firewall on the fly and correctly sets all sharing settings based on the profile of the network there.

3) 3G features - Networking Again - 3G if you have the latest drivers from most manufacturers, and you have a 3G netbook, or even a 3G phone that you are tethering, the Network connection is treated more like a WiFi connection, and gives you instant information from the same interface, with Bars, Speed, etc, and again automatically just hooks you into the network and again applies the level of firewall security and sharing crackdown that you have specified.

4) Resume from Standby or Hibernate - Set your Power Button to hibernate and you can flip the netbook on and off as fast as you can open your phone. The speed differences in resume from standby are good, but the hibernate resume features are fast, and when you are trying to rebook flights running through an airport, you appreciate these little things.

5) Then add in 1000 other new features over XP, from better application boot times via Superfetch, to pulling up tons of information from a simple search. There are also the nice corporate features that work better and are handy from newer ways it deals with Offline files and access remote servers, to even NTFS features that do a bit extra to keep previous versions of your documents with you at all times, without even having to back them up every hour.

And this could go on and on and on, as the full list of several thousand features were contrasted between Win7 and XP that really do make things easier and work better than an 8 year old OS. (From bluetooth to even having the right printers appear based on what network I'm roaming on at the moment, just little things that are nice.)

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Finally, netbooks are NOT ONLY for just browsing the internet. They are low power computers, and you seem to discount that there are users running Office, and Photoshop, and Corel, and Illustrator, and even playing games on these computers. There is a difference between getting a crap Web inteface to my documents when at the airport, and actually opening the application they were created in and just editing them.

You can also find 'geeks' like myself playing an MMO on netbooks, and sure it isn't 60fps, but 20-30fps on a device isn't bad, and ironically, most of the games that the Netbooks can actually run, hold their own and often run faster under Win7, as it does a better job of silencing background processes.

There are also the times, I just want to read an eBook, watch a movie, listen to a book, or listen to music, and then the Netbook becomes the ultimate PMP, and you will find me with headphones on and my Netbook is shoved in my briefcase. (Oh and on flights where space is tight, again, they work quire well for movie viewing, you are getting a 8-10" screen for you and anyone you travel with and about the same battery life as a generic brand or iPod touch when playing Video content.

So when it gets back to 'more than the internet', I say ya, and hell ya. I was one of the last people around to get a netbook, and by circumstance had to grab a 3G one on a trip because II was out in the middle of 'Internet is a facy word ville'.

After a few weeks of ok XP performance, Win7 was installed and haven't looked back. Also it is amazing that with 3G on the device and even with the tiny 3Cell battery, it is surprising how much I use the netbook at times and places I never even considered. Messaging with friends and take the computer to the kitchen and fix dinner, or garage, etc.

Heck I grab my bluetooth headset and walk and jog with it in my pack because I started a messenger conversation with a friend in Europe and it was just easier to grab the netbook and throw it in, have Win7 flip from WiFi to the 3G network seamlessly just go. Let alone saving on Cell costs and I had my photos, music to share with my friend and a webcam. It was like hanging out with them sitting in a park, and ya I got a good 2-3hrs battery life on the generic 3cell.

But this secondary part is more about why netbooks are more than just internet devices... If I was force to pick between the cooleset HTC or iPhone or a $50 netbook, I would still go with the netbook, and keep a tiny cheap cell phone for calls.

We're running several RAID configurations, even on many of our notebooks with dual-HD configurations. RAID 0, RAID 1, etc...

Not sure what issue you are seeing, but maybe you should complain to the HD Controller MFR as this would be the first place to yell, as they not only make the driver, but once the OS passes off HD read/write commands to the driver and then the HD Controller for the RAID, the OS has little to do with what happens then.

I personally know that some RAID MFRs are crap sadly, but even running Linux, the drivers are and HD controllers are still crap.

Haven't seen the ATI Black screen, unless it sets your video mode to a native resolution and you havea 1990s monitor, but even then it should pop back or you could reboot and adjust this in safe mode.

Ok, the article isn't off the scale in terms of inaccuracy, but when you see comments like this, how can you trust anything they do or say?

Aero is automatically disabled when unplugged in battery saver mode which makes sense

Aero is NOT disabled when unplugged; instead, translucency is turned off. (The Blur/Glass effect)

Aero itself remains enabled. I know people confuse 'Glass' and 'Aero' and 'DWM' and what the OS, but come on this is a technical review right, shouldn't they get the basic facts that you find on Wikipedia correct or at least maybe, just maybe have a clue themselves?

There are other more subtle errors in the article, and even though it basically says Win7 is doing fine. However, do you notice it forgets to mention that Win7 is performing as well as XP while having search, defender and many other 'heavy' features working properly and still performing as well as XP on a very modest CPU and GPU platform.

Going to leave it here...

why closed platforms suck

This has nothing to do with a close platform, this is a controlled market place, the platform is irrelevant.

In contrast, Windows Mobile is a 'closed platform' and you or anyone can develop any application you want and ditribute it through any 'marketplace' or method you choose, as even as the Microsoft Marketplace comes into existence, you are NOT LOCKED to using it.

What about our browser?

If EVERY browser isn't included on the list, then the EU is forcing Microsoft into a collusion arrangement with the other big name browsers that get on the ballot. By having a 'selective list' it seems there would be worse legal ramifications for Microsoft, especially in other parts of the world.

So the giants get bigger and other newer technologies are forced out. Thanks EU... Brilliant...

When using a LiveCD even if the OS is breached a reboot puts you right back where you were without any infection that might have occurred

Well you make a good point if you want to play 'gotcha'. However, you forget that the default model that Windows works with, offers these features inherently without having to run the OS from a write protected image.

With NTFS's cop on write features and journalling, the OS and volume can be rolled back, which means you don't have to run from a non-write OS construct and still get the same level of protection.

THE IMPORTANT thing you are missing, is that your CD solution can be technically compromised so that any applicaitons you have running could be handing off data to a bot or spyware or a website, as the browser is running at the USER level, and has access to all the USER data to give out.

So sure on reboot, it cleans itself up, but while running, everything you do in theory could be sending and compromizing all user data and applications.

If you think process isolation on Linux is 'better', remember that XWindows runs at ROOT, so there are several good ways to use a browser or any application with USER security to gain access to XWindows and be able to intercept and send back your keystrokes and other data that goes through the XWindows protocol all the time your machine is up. Heck flipping out the data capured can be hidden in basic HTTP, and not flagged by your firewall.

So you can get back to a clean install easily - but then remember that even if you discount the snapshot abilities, with Windows you can still do a VHD or other technology and reimage on every boot seamlessly.

So a clean install every boot, just like your solution.

The best protection is to move network level applications to reduced security modes, and doing this with IE in Vista and Win7 is a major step forward that shouldn't be discounted.

Win7 was probably cleanly installed a month ago after the latest Beta/RC.

Sure that could be it, but in cases where this is NOT true, the performance differences are still present.

This old laptop I am using at the moment was a Vista RTM/SP1/SP2 (SP2 Beta insstalls even) Win7 Beta 1, Win7 RC (using modded text file to allow upgrade. This computer is nothing special execpt it is my 'testing' work horse that I throw lots of crap at all the time and for its 'time' (2005) was a nice model, having a nice P4 and a 7950 GPU.

The main thing about performance gains with Win7, and I will speak in general, but it applies very directly to this laptop, is there are lots of 'UI' level optimizations that give a faster feel. This means when you open 'Computer' or 'Documents' it pops open and subsequent use of Explorer continues to be snappy and you get around at speeds that are beyond even what Explorer in XP felt like. (In fact some of the bug reports dealt with on Win7 have been from the Explorer UI responding too fast while scrolling, etc thus making the user not fully double click as the UI has responded faster than the User.)

So there is the 'feel' and this goes beyond Explorer and also just 'feel'. Many applications have a bit more of a lightness and spark to them (3rd party as well), and this has to do with DWM optimizations and other little refining steps. There are also less 'locks', as with XP and even some with Vista, you would find the Control Panel locked up while the system was applying a setting or a dialog stick to the screen, etc. These types of locks in the OS applications and Explorer and hard to find now.

Technically there are also reasons why lower level operations in the OS not only work a bit faster, but are also smoother, as granularity has been combed through in Win7, with many kernel and various layer locks removed as they are no longer necessary.

The memory footprint and memory usage is also a big thing, and helps performance, even on higher end systems with extra RAM.

On low end systems like 512mb or 1gb of RAM, the service model has changed in Win7 with a new event based service handler, this keeps services 'alive' but not 'running' in a classical sense, which reduces the service footprint considerably.

On high end RAM systems, the flipping in and out of RAM was improved in Vista, but again refined with a few new rules in Win7. This keeps Superfetch doing good things better and also lets some of the RAM flagging added in Vista smooth out for better overalall usage of RAM for Video and other things 'extra' RAM is used for.

Gaming does see improvements in Win7.

Part of this has to do with the RTM Vista Video drivers from NVidia and ATI sucked, and where barely working, let alone optimized. As everyone here should know, Vista introduced WDDM and this was not a 'revision' but a ground up re-write of video drivers. This was great for progress, but sucked for gaming as all the years of optimizations used in games and by the video drivers either no longer applied or had to be done another way. About Jun-Sep07, this changed as the NVidia and ATI drivers caught up to the XP speeds users had 'expected' out of Vista.

So going forward with 'more' optimizations and implementation of the WDM 1.1 specifications that give the OS more 'scheduler' level control of the GPU, brings the performance up a bit from Vista. Some GPUs will see minor improvements, some will see large improvements, and as the newer WDM 1.1 revisions are optimized, these 'boosts' could even grow, while giving the GPU multi-tasking abilities of the OS a more smooth experience.

On this 2005 laptop, I see about 5-10fps boost in games between Vista SP2 and Win7. It isn't massive, but helps. On an even older laptop at my house that is a P4 with a Geforce 5600M GPU, game FPS jump about 1.5 to 2x what they ran in Vista. The funny thing about this laptop, is that it has to use the same Vista drivers from Dec 2006, as NVidia doesn't update the driver for the FX 5xxx cards past that release driver. So where the performance jump comes from is beyond driver for whatever reason.

If people are tech heads, go read Mark Russ... (sp?) blog, or catch him on Channel9.msdn.com - he goes through a lot of the differences and why they matter and why they work. I tend to like how he presents the information, as he was never a Windows 'fan' and still has an edge of skeptic in him that actually gives good feedback to the MS team when they do stupid stuff.

Win7, ya faster than Vista a bit, uses less RAM, and will feel snappier than XP on the same hardware.

Active X ...will soon be added to the Thesaurus as a synonym of "Vulnerability".

Right alone with Firefox Plugins, and any other technology that allows native code to run inside a browser.

Even better, use freaking Windows Update and install IE8, fixed...

totally agree that the browser shouldn't be so integrated with the operating system. As a rule, we all know that you don't put yourself out on the public internet...

This is why IE was severed from the OS in Vista and Win7. In Vista, it plays no role in anyting but browsing or being called by 3rd party applications and still it remains a protected process with reduced security access.

It no longer runs in conjunction with Explorer or has any OS level ties as it did in XP. (This is why Web Destkop was also removed from Vista, as IE was separated from the OS and OS processes like Explorer, etc.)