XP or Vista ?

I have absolutely no experience and am looking for advice\opinions on whether i should install win xp or vista(i have neither os and still need to purchase the one i decide to use.). My main concerns are that the os should not hang in any way and still provide a great user experience. i would also like to do full installs-not sure about how sensible that is but i think it should help with the general speed of the os!-correct?
i like vista cause it looks good but it takes a lot of space and i have read mixed reviews. xp on the other hand is a smaller install and in theory should run better however many threads say that it does hang-perhaps due to bad installs?. to me that means vista should be out of the question but some users say that vista is running faster than xp and that i really dont understand! linpus and ubuntu i would like to get to work with as a project but do not want as my main os-due to lack of experience . so i would really appreciate the advice of anyone who has installed different os's under the same hardware environment on there aao and worked with them to give me there advice.
i am also considering upgrading to a cf card so would like to know whether a sdhc(class 4 or 6) will work just as fast but with out the expense and modding of a cf card. if there is a vast read\write difference between the sdhc and cf cards and a cf card is worth the expense then will 266x be good enough or does it need to be 300x?
1gb memory is also on the way.

To those who read and respond i would like to thank you in advance!

 

i prefer XP

 

With the 8GB SSD you're not gonna get far with a full install of Vista, I've heard it takes over 7GB. Using vLite it's possible to get the installation under 4GB without removing too much compability. I like Vista for the GUI and overall smoother feel. XP on the other hand would work in a full install. It takes some more trouble to install from a USB-stick. Performance is probably about the same, my vista runs fine, but both OS' are troubled by the slow write-speed of the SSD causing slow-ups from time to time. there are ways of going around this, search the forum.

The fastest SDHC card that I've found in Sweden is a Sandisk Extreme III, which has a speed of ~18/18 MB/s (read/write), compared to internal SSD's (P-1800 version) 40/12 MB/s. A 300x CF card can reach speeds of 40/40 MB/s. Using two sandisk extreme III in raid would probably work for an OS. There is a specific thread about using CF-cards as well, read that!

 

i have vista because i have some apps that only can run in it, but it takes 4gb (lite with webcam support) and it runs normally (no slow no fast), the xp sp3 runs also teh same but it takes less ram memory witch is very important if you see for example videos, if you have more than 512mb of ram you can run vista perfectly, instead i recomend you xp.

 

hey guys thanks for your responses!

 

I haven't installed either myself, since I got the 120GB HDD version with XP already installed, but, unless you have some reason that you're going to need Vista, I would certainly recommend XP. From what I know, Vista is a rather resource hungry OS, and that just doesn't really fit with a netbook IMO.

 

I have installed Vista Home Premium, works very very nice, all hardware works. My AA1 - 1.5 ram - HDD sata 30gb - Vista Home Premium

 

I installed Win Xp Pro at a 150 Linpus with a 120 gb HD and 1 gb ram and are more then happy with it, NTFS and all.
I would only like to know if someone already installed a 64 bit Windows or what I want a triple boot Win with Linux Ubuntu and Mac OS X so people can see Java programs working at all three systems.
With the populairity of resource hungry Vista I'm not yet interested in Vista at this small system

 

Xp seems to run faster than vista, for me, on the 8gb ssd.
I set everything up and then disable writing to disk,
they behaved the same at this stage (office,web,media usage)
but vista used up the whole ssd. Now running tinyxp_09, with all software only
totals 1.5gb, left me with room for my permanent 2gb music file and still 4gb
left of free space. My documents on sd card.

For me the only acceptable windows without using write protect, would be a version
floating on the net called eeepc_02. Very fast but I found it too buggy, def will experiment
more with it soon though as I was very impressed.

Hope this helps.

oscar-

btw, please does anyone know if xp media center edition 2005 works ok??

 

I guess it comes down to how truly do you need to run vista/xp on the AA1 with 8 gb SSD.
Like the some of the others have said, you will be tight for space loading vista on an 8 gb SSD unless you use a Vlited version of Vista.
Unless you choose the 120/160 gb version of AA1, then space isn't an issue.
But Vista whatever the version you use is resource hungry and the AA1 will just barely meet it's min. requirements.

So, I know XP is old and ancient, but it is better suited to run on the AA1.
Just my 2 cents. Others will agree/disagree with me. But whatever works best for you.

 

Upgraded from 512MB/120GB to 1.5GB/320GB hardware wise, I went from XP to vista.

The system ran hotter for me under XP. The USB card readers transfer much slower (11MB/sec read/write) compared to Vista (16MB write/23MB read) and I would be using this as a way to offload pictures from my digital SLR's on the road (RAW files are huge sometimes!) so this was somewhat important for me. Overall, I find USB faster in Vista than XP.

XP does take less of an overall footprint, no question.

 

I bought one with xp and the 120 GB HDD and found it to be a little hesitant. Just for shits and giggles I decided to install Vista instead. I can confirm that unless it's my imagination it runs faster on Vista than xp. Installing Vista is easy, getting all the best drivers for the job was the harder part. That said this forum has been fantastic and answered every question I had.

 

Well ... I can only speak from my experience. I have the 120 gig version that came with xp preloaded and 1 gig of ram. I have installed Vista Home premium and am very happy. I did use vlite to reduce the installed size. The only thing I took out was the different language packs and that reduced it from about 35 gig install to about 9 gig install. It boots up in about 50 seconds and I am using MS Office 2007 pro in about 90 seconds. I did not take any drivers out with the vlite simply because I have a few gadgets that I use from time to time and wanted to have a complete driver set installed. By the way, in the first 2 weeks of owning my machine I had XP, OS X, Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE and even Windows 2000 installed!!! I have stuck with Vista to use from now on and am extremely happy. Aero works great along with all hardware. Just my experience. Thanks for taking time to read this post.

 

I initially installed XP, and it ran decently, (with all the tips you nice folks suggested), but I accidentally mucked things up and so had to reinstall an OS anyway. I went w/ Vista and it does seem to be a bit peppier. I would suggest looking into Tiny Vista, which only takes about 2GB of space. Also, and this may just be me, but Vista "feels" smoother as well.

 

A quick question, OP, which AAO do you have? That will also be a factor - if you have the 120GB version, then I say go for the full Vista experience. I have the 8GB version, which is why the Tiny Vista option was preferable for me...

 

I have owned AA1 with 8GB SSD, 1GB ram, and with Linpus Linux OS. Because of lack in Linux OS I have plan to install XP in my AA1, did any one know how to install XP in AA1 with Linpus base OS?

 

XP Professional should be the choice on this machine.

Vista still has lots of problems with certain hardware and drivers and software running smoothly.

 

The N270 has no support for 64 bits, only the desktop version does (Atom 230)

 

Whichever Windows you choose, I'd highly recommend doing the FBWF or EWF tweaks that are on these forums. I'm using a vLited Vista, and it's almost as quick as my way more powerful desktop PC now, since Vista isn't constantly writing to the appallingly slow SSD.

Not a problem if you have a HDD though I guess.

Without preventing the writing to the drive, I found Vista to be better than XP - far less lockups (in XP my mouse cursor locked up every 10 seconds or so), and lower temperature. Both are pretty slow on the SSD though without tweaks.

 

i have the 120gb AA1, have both XP and vista installed in dual boot. i don't notice too much difference, except in vista it seems to constantly access the hard drive.

i have 1.5gb ram installed, so memory isn't too much of a concern, but on startup XP takes only 100mb while vista takes 300mb.