The smell of newly purchased stuff… So, there I was, Hauppauge WinTV board in hand, Mandrake 10 installed and ready to rock! Little did I expect that it would come to this. But first things first.
Let’s begin with my background. I know computers, and quite frankly I know them pretty well. After 5 years at university, most of the time staring either into my 21″ Miro or into my too small chassis containing my old PIII 450MHz with various twists, and also as a network admin at my dorm with some 140 computers, I’ve come to know them pretty well. Most of the time at Uni my computer was running Windows 2000 and was happy with that, although I always loved to boot into my FreeBSD partition and feel the delight of total control as I tweaked and twisted my inits and rc:s. When I quit Uni and my trusty PIII died with a sigh I decided enough was enough. At Uni I used to reinstall Windows every 6 months or so, since I couldn’t keep from bloating it and I didn’t really feel like walking through the registers deleting old services all the time. Now I got rid of my Windows partition and installed FreeBSD to use as my only OS that, for now, ran on a borrowed PII 350 MHz. At first, I missed some of the nice things Windows had to offer, but soon enough I had forgotten all about it.
Time passed, I got myself a job, an apartment in a new town and a new P4 3GHz with 1GB speedy memory and 200GB hard drive, yummy! I didn’t think much of it, but did a fresh install of FreeBSD again. Some more time passed and although I thought FreeBSD is superb in almost every way, I’ve always been a music junkie, and some of the features ALSA could offer in the new 2.6 Linux kernel seduced me. I tried various Linux distros, including Mandrake 10, Slackware 10, Fedora Core 2, Debian Sarge and Gentoo. They were all nice and nifty, and I had just about decided to stay with Debian (since it has almost as good application base and tools with apt* as FreeBSD’s ports) when destiny took another shot at me. My job forced me to relocate to a new town, a new apartment and a new… no, wait! No Internet connection available! Not yet anyways. This, and the fact that Swedish Television announced that they are sending an entire night, twelve hours straight, devoted to rock and heavy metal this very Friday night got my wheels spinning.
Seeing an old friend
I don’t own a TV, much less a VCR. What to do? I’d really like to see this show. I went to the store and purchased a (reeaally) cheap Hauppauge WinTV board, and figured that I’d just plug it in and record the whole thing. I knew of tvtime and xawtv, and that xawtv could capture video, although I had never used it. Enter current time, and enter problems. I have no Internet connection, so I cannot download any packages to install the applications or libraries needed. Also, in my current move-chaos, I have left all my CDs and DVDs with packages and distributions in my other apartment, in another town. I found a Knoppix CD, which detected my board, and I was able to watch xawtv, but only in black and white, and it did not record. After ploughing through all my bags and boxes full of my belongings, the only thing I found that was of any help was my Windows 2000 Professional installation CD. After scratching my head to the bone I decided to give it a try. I mean, I work with Windows XP everyday at work, and I know that installation can be as simple as click-click-double-click. After all, I do have the installation CD that came with the WinTV card. Insert CD and fire up!
Now, I seem to recall Windows installations as a breeze compared to that of Linux or *BSD (yes, WinXP is more so than W2k) but I guess things change. Compared to SuSE, Fedora Core and especially Mandrake, Windows (both W2k and WinXP) is a walk on broken glass to install. I haven’t tried it, but I guess Xandros and Linspire are just as easy as the three cousins mentioned. If you take the time to read the instructions when it comes to partitioning and bootloading on a Slackware or Debian installation, then it’s not harder to install than any Windows flavor. Okay, Gentoo is a league of its own, but no one lacking severe experience in OS:es should ever try that at home.
Installation is finished, let’s reboot into our fresh system. Hey! What’s this?! I’m being greeted with a screen resolution from hell, and a 16-color display, some welcome! In Linux, I was at anytime invited into a nice 1024×768 or even a 1280×1024 display with millions of nice colors to view. Okay, let’s just change that in the nice Display Properties Settings Menu. Nope, no go! I have to install new drivers and reboot first. What drivers? The ones I can download from my none-existing Internet connection? Sure, I may have gotten a CD with all that with the display card when I bought the computer, but that is 250 kilometers from here, and no time to fetch it. Linux may not offer me accelerated hardware support with the built-in drivers (with some exceptions, I believe), but then again, Windows offers me nothing at all. Yes, again, WinXP has much better support for this, I admit, but if I recall correctly not even that was of any high quality.
Okay, I try to install the WinTV board anyway, it might give me something. Well, no, not really. The sound works fine, but there is nothing but a black square where the image should be. I guess it needs more colors to display correctly.
Score so far?
At this point, I’d say Linux and Windows are even. The exception is the unlikely winner Knoppix, who can show me b/w TV, with a 2.4.x kernel, running from CD, impressive I must add. Well, I have Windows installed and a messy apartment waiting to be cleaned up. Let’s explore my old OS and see if there is any nostalgia to be discovered. But alas, to my surprise, there is nothing to be discovered. We have… let’s see… er… Notepad and WordPad, nice for writing stuff like this, and then there is… uhm… Paint and Mediaplayer. Let’s face it, Windows comes with nothing! Not even if you consider that WinXP has a newer version of most of this, and some more tasty stuff, like Moviemaker. Sure, there is Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, so if I had an Internet connection I could browse the web and fetch some mails and viruses, since there is not even a proper firewall installed. Where’s the stuff I need to get my work done? Where is my Office suite? Where is my application for creating awesome graphics for my website? Where is my compiler? Where is my Instant Messenger? No, I don’t want that one, I want one that supports multiple IM protocols! Okay, so I don’t have a connection, but nevertheless, I’ll have one soon (I hope, I’ll be sending this from work).
If I only chose to install KDE or Gnome under Linux I was rewarded with all those apps, either by default or by installing them from the installation CD. I had OpenOffice.org, Gimp, gcc/g++, Kopete and Gaim and tons of stuff I really could use for my everyday work and entertainment. Using Windows I have to buy MS Office for almost the same price as the OS itself or download OpenOffice.org from the Internet, since it is not included on the CD. Same goes for the compiler, only the compiler from MS costs more than I make in a month, if I want all the stuff I have for free in Linux. The other programs have to be downloaded as well; the graphics suite, the IM and all the other stuff I want.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to download anything from the Internet after having installed it. Of course I download stuff, I do it all the time. I have to download the entire Linux distribution in the first place, since I never bought one. But the bottom line is this: I CAN use my computer for my everyday work (writing documents, presentations, spreadsheets and programming) if I install a standard distribution of Linux (one CD is usually enough) on my computer. However, if I use Windows, I either need to buy the extra stuff or download it from the Internet, since none of it really comes included on the CD.
This article is not about pointing the finger, but isn’t it a little strange that Windows creates a hollow shell for your “useable” software and charge you money for it, while Linux distributions come fully packed with all sorts of candy from the very beginning, and it’s free from the start? I’ll leave it to the reader to go figure.
But how about usability then?
Isn’t Windows more usable when it’s all set? Well, I used to think so too, but after having installed Windows on my machine again, I’d have to say I doubt it. It pretty much comes down to what distro you use. I’ll go for Debian when this is over, because it offers me the best mix of control and general usability. If you try out one of the major distros, meaning SuSE, Mandrake or Fedora Core, I think you’ll find it easy enough to manage and use your computer. With tools like Yast, up2date (or yum, when someone fixes a nice GUI for it) and Drake-tools, you can browse and search large repositories for applications and updates to install. You can even update your entire world, including kernel and userland. With Windows, there is the auto update tool, which pretty much works in the same way, but it only maintains your system as far as security updates and applications included in the Windows suite (eg, Internet Explorer). To maintain your other applications is your headache, not theirs.
As for using the computer on an everyday basis, Linux (or Linux applications rather) still has some way to go. OpenOffice.org is a killer, but the kick-ass spreadsheets with the kick-ass formulas are still done in Excel. Gimp and its relatives are great, but Adobe and its competitors on the Windows market still have a tight grip here. Same goes for most large and complex applications like AutoCAD, who’s still in the lead. Most other applications, like Internet browsers, mail clients, IMs, databases, blablabla are equally strong in the Linux department.
Hardware?
Yes and No. Windows in itself actually supports less hardware than Linux (the kernel). But in practice, windows supports more hardware, since most hardware manufacturers include a CD with their products with drivers and installation guides for Windows. This is slowly changing, more and more manufacturers include drivers for Linux, but the progress is slow. However, as we can see, my main concern was to get my graphics card and my WinTV board working. With Linux it worked to some degree, but with Windows it didn’t work at all, it didn’t even know what kind of device it was until I installed the drivers (this is true even for WinXP).
Conclusion?
Windows is a good product. For everyday use it’s stable (although not too secure, as we’ve seen) and easy to use. But Microsoft is a heavy colossus, and it moves too slowly to keep up with today’s development speed. Technologies like .NET will continue to shake the market to its foundations, but that is not enough to keep the actual users satisfied. I believe that lots of companies hold on to Microsoft merely because there are tons of custom-built applications out there that runs on Windows that are needed to keep the business floating. But we can see more and more users in the Linux communities, companies and governments decide to switch to Linux, despite the effort and initial costs it involves. Personally I would love to see the market switching to Linux today, but it’s a big operation, and it will take time and effort from those who decide to do so. Microsoft supporters keep giving us the “Linux is actually more expensive” argument, and I believe that this is a bunch of crap. Sure, initially there will be costs for education, time spent on installing, upgrading and maintaining a new system, but in the end there will be a positive economical effect. Why? Because logically, nothing can be cheaper than what’s free, right?
I’m not a Linux zealot, I use Microsoft products myself, but I enjoy it so much more when I get to work with Linux. I can even change the looks of my desktop as I desire, for free! =o)
About the author
Kristofer “Jalle” Jarl is nearly 26 years old, almost grown up, but far from mature. This Master of Science wishes he could spend more time on the snowboard or with a guitar on his lap than he spends on calculating signal strengths and qualities for a large telephone service provider. Someday he may even try to do something big with his own little firm, which for now lies sleeping somewhere in a box in his new apartment.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
“Windows (both W2k and WinXP) is a walk on broken glass to install”
Why is that, were you trying to install a different language Windows version than the one you know?
If you think Windows installation is hard well I have nothing more to say…
Try to compare win2k with some linux from this time, not with suse 9.1 from 2004! And do not go anywhere without your cds! Lunux”s may have all after installing, but this is…All The best software is for win!
Microsoft offers a FREE C# and FREE C and C++ compiler.
One thing i don’t understand is that everytime microsoft includes a new application everyone has a cry but this guy is having a cry about not having many programs installed by default. can’t please all the people all the time…
If you think Windows installation is hard well I have nothing more to say…
It’s hard when your video card isn’t supported and cannot proceed to install until you get an older model that will work. It’s hard when the drivers for your SATA interface are not included. It’s hard when you have dial-up and it takes you three days get all the updates downloaded and installed just so you can use your system on the interent without getting a worm. It’s hard when your drivers won’t stay put and disappear every reboot. You getting my drift?
Yes, most Linux installers are pretty simple these days, I agree. I also with this would stop being 50% of peoples review.
He seemed to skip software instalation on Linux, and then dock windows for not including more software with the CD.
Ever think there is a reason so much Linux software comes with the CD?
I have spent more time hacking away at some applications to get them installed than it would have taken me to do a fresh install of another distro that includes that app with it.
All The best software is for win!
That’s a personal opinion and highly debatable. Where’s the kismet equivalent for Windows? Nevermind that, can you even get a wireless card into monitor mode in Windows?
>You getting my drift?
Not really, I think you are an exception to the rule, if you weren’t we’d have seen a significant shift in the user base which we havn’t, if anything the opposite appear to be the case if you examine Google stats.
I’ve never experienced any of the problems you mention and I’ve been using Win since 3.1. I’ve never had a device not work and I’ve gone through 7+ machines and lord knows how many at work (devices ranging from faltbeds, cameras, webcams, tv cards etc). We do have a linux machine at work (to support a single user of our software) and most of our developers hate it because it takes so much time to get anything done on it (hence more dollars to support). When there are deadlines to meet the linux box always holds us up.
As for lack of applications, it is true that out of the box Windows can seem sparse compared to linux, but the number of possible downloads dwafts what’s available under Linux.
>Sure, initially there will be costs for education, time spent >on installing, upgrading and maintaining a new system, but in >the end there will be a positive economical effect. Why? >Because logically, nothing can be cheaper than what’s free, >right?
This statement is quite naive, the cost of the OS is insignificant compared to the cost of development, we can burn a couple of 1000 dollars in a week on linux without much to see for it. It is labour which costs, software is cheap.
Not really, I think you are an exception to the rule, if you weren’t we’d have seen a significant shift in the user base which we havn’t, if anything the opposite appear to be the case if you examine Google stats.
Hold up. Exactly how is the ease (or lack thereof) of installation for Windows a determining factor in usage? Most people don’t install an operating system.
I’ve never experienced any of the problems you mention and I’ve been using Win since 3.1. I’ve never had a device not work and I’ve gone through 7+ machines and lord knows how many at work (devices ranging from faltbeds, cameras, webcams, tv cards etc).
You’re damn lucky then because I’ve been using Windows since 3.1 also and I’ve had plenty of trouble. The scanner that I own never worked on Win2000 but hasn’t been trouble at all on Linux. I’ve had similar problems with a digital camera (works fine on Linux but not Windows). I can’ imagine with all your self-professed Winodws experience that you did not encounter at least one instance where a driver that was available for the 9x series was not available the NT series.
We do have a linux machine at work (to support a single user of our software) and most of our developers hate it because it takes so much time to get anything done on it (hence more dollars to support). When there are deadlines to meet the linux box always holds us up.
How could it possibley take longer to do things for your developers? They shouldn’t be installing software or drivers or any of that crap. The admin is responsible for that. Developers just need to use the applications and if they don’t have the right tools or don’t know how to use the applications you can hardly blame that on Linux. Most development software is not entirely intuitive and you need to learn the application before you use it, no matter what environment you are using.
As for lack of applications, it is true that out of the box Windows can seem sparse compared to linux, but the number of possible downloads dwafts what’s available under Linux.
Most of it is crap though. Sure you have crappy apps for Linux too but the main focus should be on quality apps. If Windows and Linux have the a similar number of quality apps but Windows has fifty thousand more crappy shareware apps does that really make the platfrom better?
@ Abraxas
It’s hard when your video card isn’t supported and cannot proceed to install until you get an older model that will work. It’s hard when the drivers for your SATA interface are not included. It’s hard when you have dial-up and it takes you three days get all the updates downloaded and installed just so you can use your system on the interent without getting a worm. It’s hard when your drivers won’t stay put and disappear every reboot. You getting my drift?
Either you’ve got very unusual hardware or, more likely, your stuff is broken. Please post specs. I am curious to what is this new stuff that’s not supported under Windows.
Why do you need a multi-protocol IM client if you don’t have an internet connection?
I myself can’t stand Windows, but sounds like you’re a linux/unix apologist who is trying not to step on any toes.
Interesting article though… I liked it.
Either you’ve got very unusual hardware or, more likely, your stuff is broken. Please post specs. I am curious to what is this new stuff that’s not supported under Windows.
Nope. The card isn’t broken. It works under Linux and installed under Linux fine. It works under Windows but cannot be used to install XP. The card is an Nvidia 5700 Ultra. Same thing for SATA. There are no drivers for SATA that come with XP. There’s no argument in that. Sorry.
“It’s hard when your video card isn’t supported and cannot proceed to install until you get an older model that will work. It’s hard when the drivers for your SATA interface are not included. It’s hard when you have dial-up and it takes you three days get all the updates downloaded and installed just so you can use your system on the interent without getting a worm. It’s hard when your drivers won’t stay put and disappear every reboot. You getting my drift?”
Sure, when you try to install a 4 year old OS with newer hardware, it doesn’t have the drivers on the CD. Big freaking surprise there. For that matter you could probably get an 802.11b NIC from the store and ahem borrow a neighbor’s connection for long enough to download new drivers, if you were really desparate.
Windows XP Pro (as a newer OS) would have done a better job of supporting your newer hardware but even then… I don’t think SATA was out when XP was released, or if it was I don’t think it was very popular, so you might be out of luck there.
How could it possibley take longer to do things for your developers? They shouldn’t be installing software or drivers or any of that crap. The admin is responsible for that
I wish people would stop saying this. “the admin this, the admin that”.
People don’t have to spend any time doing anything on Linux, because it is always “the admin” that will do it for them.
Where do I meet this “the admin” and does he have time to fit me in?
WIndows is still number one and will remain number one. Unless Linux really invent sometihng and quit copying stuff from unix and windows, it will always be way behind windows.
And hello you all, who just think that its just cool to say bad about windows, you know what windows is competing against *free* linux and still linux share is not increasing? Now stop writing such crap on the name of articles and go do some coding for linux to make it worth competing against windows.
Windows Rulez…Linux is only good for developers…and trust me Microsoft is aggressively capturing that market too now.
PS: To all the english teachers out there, English is my second language
Sure, when you try to install a 4 year old OS with newer hardware, it doesn’t have the drivers on the CD
I’m sorry, where do I get my copy of Longhorn because I was doing this WinXP.
For that matter you could probably get an 802.11b NIC from the store and ahem borrow a neighbor’s connection for long enough to download new drivers, if you were really desparate.
Sure, I’ll go ahead and break the law…wait..oh yeah, NO ONE has a wireless internet connection in my neighborhood. I know, because I passive scan and get nothing. By the way, can you do that in Windows?
> Video Card problem
As others said, you really should have an odd video card, I have been using windows for a long long time ( as a network technician and user) with different video cards and installation never failed.
> Sata problem
Well your motherboard should come with all drivers. After the installation it is quite easy to install them as windows will let you know
> Worm problem
Well It totally depends on the user. If anybody who has a little knowledge of linux, who logins with root, can get a trojan easily. As far as I know in our time(up until year 2004) If you are dumb enough to accept the malicious thing, it really doesnt matter what OS you use. Windows doesnt tell you come and install it…
> Driver problem
Sorry my drivers are not doing that.
Well let me tell you this. I dont say Windows is the perfect os or I dont ever have problems with it. Of course it annoys me a lot but I see many stupid articles and people are not objective. Windows has bad and good sides but it is stupid to say Windows installation is hard when it is not hard.
I wish people would stop saying this. “the admin this, the admin that”.
People don’t have to spend any time doing anything on Linux, because it is always “the admin” that will do it for them.
Where do I meet this “the admin” and does he have time to fit me in?
What kind of place do you work where you have development computers and no admin? You can’t run a Windows environment like that either so I don’t know who you are trying to fool.
Note: I never said that you NEED an admin for linux, only that developers shouldn’t be messing with that stuff, that’s what admins are for.
Linux gets as easy as Windows, and reasons, ihmo, are mainly two:
1) people are accustomed to paradigms when it comes to work on a computer, and Windows, like it or not, is *the* paradigm, and for sure this won’t change anytime soon (other versions on win will change it perhaps, but not Linux).
2) fairly self-explanatory… try to explain to AverageJoe that he has to open a terminal, tar+bunzip2 a file named flash-install.tar.bz2, then read the terminal, type in manually *where* his mozilla installation lays just for the sake of having Flash installed… No, we’re not there yet.
And this point 2 is also representative of the general installation difficulty and dependency hell so many people run into continuosly… install Mozilla under Win is a breeze, why can’t it be at least as easy in Linux?
Linux software is very good (sometimes amazing), and simply not comparable to professional software for Win, that’s a fact: no professional CAD (Catia is still no released afaik), no 3d Modeler (blender is great but low end), no Professional Video Editing Suite, no serious Sound editing/Mixing whatever program… list gets long.
Linux is great, but until the big dollars decide to invest on it porting the really great apps to it, it’s still a 2nd class desktop system.
Or, better, a first class average desktop system, and that’s what everybody’s trying to sell: desktop systems which can be used like Windows in corporate networks filled up with average joes and anns who use what they are put to work with.
I have been on this train for the last 8 years, and since then, Linux has grown enormeously, but never really got any nearer Win (but for the server market, that’s it)
Lorenzo
@ Abraxas
Nope. The card isn’t broken. It works under Linux and installed under Linux fine. It works under Windows but cannot be used to install XP. The card is an Nvidia 5700 Ultra. Same thing for SATA. There are no drivers for SATA that come with XP. There’s no argument in that. Sorry.
What are the specs? You mentioned almost nothing. What is the maker of the Nvidia 5700 Ultra card? What’s your motherboard (Chipset, maker, etc…)?
I have an MSI Nvidia 5200 card and the drivers are not included on the XP CD but one trip to WindowsUpdate and the problem is gone.
Well your motherboard should come with all drivers. DURING the installation it is quite easy to install them as windows will let you know
Well your motherboard should come with all drivers. After the installation it is quite easy to install them as windows will let you know
This is true, but you are SOL if you didn’t buy the MoBo from a retailer but rather a person.
Well It totally depends on the user. If anybody who has a little knowledge of linux, who logins with root, can get a trojan easily. As far as I know in our time(up until year 2004) If you are dumb enough to accept the malicious thing, it really doesnt matter what OS you use. Windows doesnt tell you come and install it…
Uhhh…Not at all. Nice try though. You don’t have to do anything to get a worm in Windows and it is quite easy to do if you are unpatched and in the process of patching the computer. Actaully installing a trojan on your computer and getting a worm by doing nothing are two TOTALLY different things. Installing linux isn’t a race against the internet like it is with Windows.
Sorry my drivers are not doing that.
And? What’s your point? It does happen and it has happened.
it is stupid to say Windows installation is hard when it is not hard
Why is it stupid to say that when I just showed instances where it can be a hassle? On top of that, installing Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, and even Slackware have been much easier on the same hardware.
What are the specs? You mentioned almost nothing. What is the maker of the Nvidia 5700 Ultra card? What’s your motherboard (Chipset, maker, etc…)?
Like it matters? At least it doesn’t for Linux. It’s the same damn chipset but if you must keep questioning me…
The video card is an eVga 5700 ultra. By the way, the eVga 5700 doesn’t work either.
The motherboard is an Abit NF7-S.
I have an MSI Nvidia 5200 card and the drivers are not included on the XP CD but one trip to WindowsUpdate and the problem is gone.
That’s great and all but how am I supposed to visit WindowsUpdate when Windows isn’t even installed?
Tell me how to get a Worm without doing anything. I really want to know.
Well, I installed almost all of the distrubutions you mentioned (favoring Slackware though) and yes they are very easy to install but I dont’t believe somebody who has never worked with Linux or similar type of OS, I mean very basic computer user(which is most of the users) can pass the partitioning part of slackware installation.
Abraxas if you ever installed windows then you would know that if a driver for your card is not found, then windows installs the default drivers which gives 640×480 resolution.
Please post the errors you got on install and tell us how your installation failed.
I’ve been using linux primary for the desktop since start of 1997, but *always* kept around a win98/2k/XP for gaming, so I do have real windows experience on decent hardwares.
Now any happy windows users could please explain how it can be used for an effective desktop with the chumpy panels, with the general lag of the start menu, with applications being able to freeze the whole desktop for *seconds*, with icons flashing every 1-2 hours showing that the graphics shell has died and got reloaded, without a decent default browser, without built-in virtual desktops, with a total braindead window manager, without task manager actually being able to kill tasks even if they dont want to die, etc.
These are so hilarious, I really wonder how people actually claim being satisfied with a windows desktop. We’re not in the mid-90’s anymore, time to wake up and open the eyes.
Abraxas if you ever installed windows then you would know that if a driver for your card is not found, then windows installs the default drivers which gives 640×480 resolution.
Please post the errors you got on install and tell us how your installation failed.
You’re not getting it. There were no errors. The install CD just won’t work with it. The screen is blank. It doesn’t do anything. There is no way to get a display. As soon as the CD loads it blank screens.
You for sure are using 9x series. NT based OS don’t suffer from what you have said. In terms of stability XP is comparable infact slightly better than linux + X. XP has never crashed on me though neither did linux but X (KDE) caused linux to hang on me twice where even the keyboard was not working.
Now the problem: When i rebooted my linux box by hard reboot, its file system got corrupt and no matter what i did with efsck or wtf that tool is, it didn’t rectify my file system and i had to reinstall linux (redhat 9.1). So claims like XP is not stable are not true. I would agree if you say 98 is not stable because yes 98 sucked ass and it used to freeze atleast 4 times on average daily on me requiring hard reboot.
First off let me say I use Linux exclusively (FreeBSD on my Soekris box) and I hate Microsoft with a passion. Just so you know where I’m coming from.
From the article: Okay, let’s just change that in the nice Display Properties Settings Menu. Nope, no go! I have to install new drivers and reboot first. What drivers?
I thought you said “I know computers, and quite frankly I know them pretty well.” If you know them well, then how could you possibly be surprised that you would need drivers to go with the hardware that you just purchased from the store on an O/S that is 4+ years old. Go grab a 4 year old Linux distro and see how much of today’s off the shelf hardware you can run.
From the article: Let’s explore my old OS and see if there is any nostalgia to be discovered. But alas, to my surprise, there is nothing to be discovered. We have… let’s see… er… Notepad and WordPad, nice for writing stuff like this, and then there is… uhm… Paint and Mediaplayer. Let’s face it, Windows comes with nothing!
Depends what you like I guess. I hate distros that include so many (mostly useless) apps that when you bring up your (K menu / Gnome Menu / whatever menu) that you need a 48″ monitor to see everything. I would much rather have a barren default Desktop that I could then populate with stuff that I’ll actually use as opposed to 12 versions of vi and emacs, database tools, games that are so dumb they don’t even deserve mentioning, 18 command line based mail readers, etc… Oh – and another 20 or 30 links to programs that aren’t even installed on your system. Always fun to spend several hours cleaning and rewriting your menus before you can use them.
From the article: Sure, there is Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, so if I had an Internet connection I could browse the web and fetch some mails and viruses, since there is not even a proper firewall installed. Where’s the stuff I need to get my work done? Where is my Office suite? Where is my application for creating awesome graphics for my website? Where is my compiler? Where is my Instant Messenger?
Are you sure you’ve used a computer before? Seriously? Without an Internet connection I don’t really think Evolution or Mozilla would be of any more use to you on Linux than OE or IE would be on Windows. And as far as “Where’s the stuff?” … well – if you took the time to download OpenOffice for Linux so that you would have it available at a time when you needed it when you didn’t have an Internet connection, then why couldn’t you have downloaded OpenOffice for Windows at the same time? Or FileZilla, putty, thunderbird, etc… I guess the Linux faery just magically delivered all your Linux downloads to you?
bah… this article is completely ignorant. I’m not even going to waste my time finishing it. You’re a clueless zealot. Get over yourself.
Alright man, we give your computer hall of fame award. It must have really special hardware to exhibit such unique behavior which i havent seen in last 6 years with thousands of windows installations.
Heh here we have another body who talks about doesnt know what he talks about.
What was the last time when you last used Windows , was it 98-99 with windows 9x?
All things you say like Virtual desktops are personal preference. I liked the idea but never got used to it as with tabbed browsing. They are totally personal preferences. I know there are a lot of people like me or like you but it is not totally related to Windows, so let say I hate tabbed browsing, do I hate FireFox, no….
I actually really like Windows GUI, I sometimes try packages like Litestep but I always come back to Windows GUI, as it is quite simple, doesnt clutter anything. What about cluttered KDE, I never liked to work with it… Besides that System resource usage of those….
I had a problem with killing some task in Linux back in time, I coudnt remember but I remember I coudnt kill it either, system halted or something like that. Anyway maybe knowledge wasnt enough, I had to read a man page. But hey not eveybody knows or cares, It has to work somehow, but it didnt work, get my point?
>These are so hilarious, I really wonder how people actually claim being satisfied with a windows desktop. We’re not in the mid-90’s anymore, time to wake up and open the eyes
Hehe congrats you guys catched up with Windows GUI lately, once in a time you didnt even have a gui or you had something like that but it wasnt really working.
Heh here we have another buddy who talks about something but doesnt really know what he talks about.
Alright man, we give your computer hall of fame award. It must have really special hardware to exhibit such unique behavior which i havent seen in last 6 years with thousands of windows installations.
You must be a novice if you think that kind of behaviour is unique. I’m sure in fairytale land you can install thousands of instances of Windows in six years without one hiccup, but in the real world things are a lot more complex than that.
Well I must I did a couple of fresh installations and after reboot they didnt work so I had to reinstall again
Well I must say …
It’s not such a strange video card problem.
I’ve got a machine with WindowsXP Pro, Linux and FreeBSD on it. It just so happens that the video card is an Nvidia Ti 4200.
Guess what? XP didn’t like it, I had to use an older card to install the OS, and then download the driver and reinstall the card. What a PITA!
On the other hand, FreeBSD and Linux had no problem with it, so it does happen.
Linux is better, no Windows is better blablabla.
Why put up these kinds of articles they never ever bring something new or from another perspective.
These threads always end up in flamming thus a bigger comment list, euurrrr…are you satisfying your ad customers?
Wolf, please re-read my comment. I always had the latest windows of the time around (currently XP). My comments are till valid (at least according my experiences), yeah, I still see these on XP.
On the other side, I could say also ‘X never crashed’, but that ‘it works for me’ is hardly a valid issue. My main point wasn’t stability, it was usability, and I do see problems here (as mentioned in my post). My point was exactly, that beside a fresh desktop theme which make anyone wow, not even windows XP brought much to the usability front on desktop markets.
As for Emre, sorry mate I dont start discussions with flamebaits. I work in IT, make softwares for a living, and I do know what I talk about.
In my present company there is a battalion of “admins” for windows servers, and clients. There are at least 50+ of them (managing things like domain servers, backup servers, etc etc etc, put-your-type-of-windows-server-here). If even half of this number were linux admins, they could manage a full linux server/client network much better. And the favourite line of all the admins I talk to for my problems is: Okay, let me install that software again for you? Why? What happens to my configurations? what happens to the time I’ve lost? Why must such a colossal “mature” OS and those zillions of apps have to be installed again and again ad nauseum?? I am yet to see anyone say: Get that Openoffice installed again and it will run!!!
My point here is that we are blinded by Microsoft’s success and somehow don’t want to come out of that comfort zone. Actually its because our employers are paying those hefty dollars to Microsoft and related leeches of money that we are able to post here in favour or Windows!
Given a chance to each one of the Windows supporting trolls here, I’ll bet they’d switch to linux if they had to buy each and every piece of software themselves. Here’s a list of what my employer pays for:
1. Windows 2000 Professional
2. MS Office 2003
3. Symantec Antivirus, that keep bugging me everyday without fail. And this in a network that is so secure that we all have those constantly changing password cards!!!
4. Lotus Notes
5. Reflection-X, for finally getting into a UNIX machine and feeling better 😉
6. TOAD from Quest Software
Mind you, there are host of other software which I am not at a liberty to write due to privacy issues. All our paid for and the support costs a fortune as well, not to mention the upgrades.
Oh and by the way — every year the hardware is rendered obsolete by the software and has to be upgraded. So, the costs just keep rising all the time.
And by the way again — there are a few Linux machines around — running Oracle databases as “test” databases — but let me tell you that the load on them is far more than on actual production machines since all the DBAs and application developers attack them for testing. It does not matter what distribution runs on them. They just work. And there is one linux/unix sysadmin and i don’t think he works overtime like the windows sysadmins.
Finally, as a resounding example of my statement above that under windows reinstallation seems to be the norm, my windows sysadmin wanted to reinstall the entire software on the backup server because he could not trace the fault!!!! Such a ghastly event is unheard of in UNIX/Linux circles.
Maybe this post is too long but just because the Windows camp is louder does not mean they are right!
🙂
@wtf
Yeah It is pretty obvious where you work, anyway it is not the subject here….
@Eric
My video card is Nvidia Ti4200 and no problems so far. But anyway….
>Finally, as a resounding example of my statement above that under windows reinstallation seems to be the norm, my windows sysadmin wanted to reinstall the entire software on the backup server because he could not trace the fault!!!! Such a ghastly event is unheard of in UNIX/Linux circles.
Thats pretty much right, when something goes wrong in Windows, there is almost no way to fix it without reinstalling.
Heh here we have another body who talks about doesnt know what he talks about.
Look in the mirror bud.
I always come back to Windows GUI, as it is quite simple, doesnt clutter anything
Fluxbox, Windowmaker, IceWM, XFCE
What about cluttered KDE, I never liked to work with it…
KDE is much more configurable than Windows and can be made to look however you want. You can even have a desktop without ANYTHING on it in KDE if you choose.
Besides that System resource usage of those….
Linux memory management is much more effective than Windows. It may seem like Linux is using a lot of RAM but it’s just being more efficient with it. If you have it, you may as well use it. Here a good lesson:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=175419&highlight=
I had a problem with killing some task in Linux back in time, I coudnt remember but I remember I coudnt kill it either, system halted or something like that. Anyway maybe knowledge wasnt enough, I had to read a man page. But hey not eveybody knows or cares, It has to work somehow, but it didnt work, get my point?
The fact that it can’t be done on Windows is completely different than the fact that you didn’t know how to. Sure the end result is the same, for the time being, but as soon as you learn how the end result is completely different. That’s all it takes with Linux. In fact you can read the man page for about 2 minutes and figure it out.
Hehe congrats you guys catched up with Windows GUI lately, once in a time you didnt even have a gui or you had something like that but it wasnt really working.
Do you actually have any clue about Linux at all? You make a lot of weird claims that make no sense. As the parent poster said, the Windows shell is ages behind as a Window Manager, and I think that’s all he really said, and he’s right. KDE/Gnome look prettier, function better, and are more configurable.
hehe, what you are doing is exactly what interviewers do in real life. Take one sentence and talk about it, not whole meaning of the paragraph but anyway I guess you can’t process all the information…
Did I ever say Linux doesnt have some windows manager which is not better than Windows GUI?
Why do you guys get so defensive all the time. You dont need to prove anything.
>KDE is much more configurable than Windows and can be made to look however you want. You can even have a desktop without ANYTHING on it in KDE if you choose.
I’m not talking about which one is more configurable, do not jump on topics.
>Linux memory management is much more effective than Windows. It may seem like Linux is using a lot of RAM but it’s just being more efficient with it. If you have it, you may as well use it. Here a good lesson:
I never said a thing about Linux memory management. You dont need to let me know that Linux has better memory management than Windows.
>Do you actually have any clue about Linux at all? You make a lot of weird claims that make no sense. As the parent poster said, the Windows shell is ages behind as a Window Manager, and I think that’s all he really said, and he’s right. KDE/Gnome look prettier, function better, and are more configurable.
Again I believe, you have information processing problem. Tell me some of my claims that come weird to you.
BTW you still didnt answer the Worm question… But I can now understand how you get those worms.
If your other hardware is compatable, that winTV card has full native support and there’s some really nice apps on bebits.com to utilize it.Plus software installation is as simple as unzip and run.
hehe, what you are doing is exactly what interviewers do in real life. Take one sentence and talk about it, not whole meaning of the paragraph but anyway I guess you can’t process all the information…
You just have poor comprehension skills. I’ll show you why:
I’m not talking about which one is more configurable, do not jump on topics.
Yeah well I’m talking about how you can configure KDE to have nothing at all, completely uncluttered. This was a direct response to you claiming that KDE is cluttered. I guess you didn’t get it.
I never said a thing about Linux memory management. You dont need to let me know that Linux has better memory management than Windows.
You are a poor listener/reader. This comment was in response to your claim that KDE takes up too much resources. It’s deceiving. The link I posted will show you why.
Again I believe, you have information processing problem. Tell me some of my claims that come weird to you.
I was speaking of this one in particular:
Hehe congrats you guys catched up with Windows GUI lately, once in a time you didnt even have a gui or you had something like that but it wasnt really working.
Not only does it barely make sense, it’s ridiculous.
BTW you still didnt answer the Worm question… But I can now understand how you get those worms.
Read up:
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/sasser.shtml
You know, no one answered my question about monitor mode in Windows either and no one answered my question as to whether or not there is an equivalent to kismet for Windows, but who’s keeping track? 😉
That sure is a dialup-looking hostname…this guy is obviously just another of the “you must convert to linux” clones, who is trying to support their argument with a bunch of contrived excuses.
You’re clueless. Yes this is a DSL connection. Does that mean I have always had a DSL connection? Does that mean I have never set up a computer anywhere else? No, it doesn’t, and your assumptions make you look like a fool.
To add to your foolishness…I have never advocated that everyone switch to linux, not once in this thread and not once ever before. Use what works for you. I have no problem with that and that’s what I have always advocated. Just don’t try to peddle this nonsense and think you’re going to get away with it from someone who knows better.
My conversations with you is getting boring but you are a funny guy.
I dont know if you are into hacking or worked as a Security Administrator or not, let me tell you something. For that things to work Attacker needs to exploit the system( as you probably read in the article , using universal exploit). It is right that Windows has vulnerable to that attack but It is quite normal. It is so stupid for you to come with something like this. There are many exploits for both Linux and Windows and you probably dont know it by now that somebody who knows how to use an exploit can gain access your Linux box, and you never even know(assuming your Linux box is not secured agains that exploit).
It amazes me how adament some people are in thier choice of software. Personally i use Windows and Slackware 10 on my desktop, and OS X on my laptop. They all have thier uses.
And to respond to some of the nonsense bashing in this thread:
Now any happy windows users could please explain how it can be used for an effective desktop with the chumpy panels
What the hell are chumpy panels? and where can i find them i’d like to see these.
with the general lag of the start menu
Not sure what system you’re running but my start menu seems to be responding just fine. Its much faster than the KDE or Gnome menu’s thats for sure.
with icons flashing every 1-2 hours showing that the graphics shell has died and got reloaded
again what the hell are you tlaking about? what icons flash every 1-2 hours?
without a decent default browser
Horray! one point that seems to make sense. Ie sucks, i agree.
without built-in virtual desktops
You know 90% of people would never use them, why install them if you dont want them (oh wait thats the Linux mentality, install as much grabage as possible by default even if 90% of it is totally useless to the average user).
Added to that microsoft Offers them to download from their site if you want them.
without task manager actually being able to kill tasks even if they dont want to die, etc.
Actually if you go to the “processes” tab and kill the task it’ll die imemdiatly.
Oh an also to the fellow with the geforce FX 5700, i have one, and windows xp pro installs just fine, in fact i even get a desktop that can go up to my monitors maximum resolution in 32-bit color, only thing i can’t do without drivers is play 3d games.
And to clear thigns up. I’m not a Windows Zealot, I just feel that alot of the posts in this thread about normal windows usage were totally unjust. Windows works great for normal everyday work when its patched up and isnt using IE. As for business work where your data is vitally important, I wouldn’t trust it.
You are so utterly clueless it’s cracking me up. Are you for real?
I dont know if you are into hacking or worked as a Security Administrator or not, let me tell you something. For that things to work Attacker needs to exploit the system( as you probably read in the article , using universal exploit). It is right that Windows has vulnerable to that attack but It is quite normal. It is so stupid for you to come with something like this.
I don’t know if YOU know THIS but the sasser worm (along with many others) is self-propogating, which means that it doesn’t need human intervention to spread. The worm automatically scans ip addresses with open ports and then proceeds to copy itself to a vulnerable host where it repeats the process. The attacker needs to do nothing but release the worm. The worm has a trojan that will allow the attacker to take control of the system. This can easily happen when updating Windows and has happened in the past. People still get infected with worms from two years ago. This is nothing new. I’m not even pretending this is some kind of revelation. It’s well known.
There are many exploits for both Linux and Windows and you probably dont know it by now that somebody who knows how to use an exploit can gain access your Linux box, and you never even know(assuming your Linux box is not secured agains that exploit).
Try it. I’m sure I can do a pretty good job foiling that plot considering:
Hardware Firewall
SELinux
Logging
Tripwire…to name a few…
Yeah, no software is perfect, but I have my defenses.
You have trouble understanding it again. Attacker can mean Worm itself or person. Anyway what worm does to exploit the system. Do you get this? Worm exploits the system.
What you said is that Worm invades Windows, you without doing anthings, yep it is possible if there is exploit, of course this same thing applies to Linux or whatever the OS system.
So basically what you talk/defend is nothing.
FYI, do a google seach on Linux worms and you will find some
Oh an also to the fellow with the geforce FX 5700, i have one, and windows xp pro installs just fine, in fact i even get a desktop that can go up to my monitors maximum resolution in 32-bit color, only thing i can’t do without drivers is play 3d games.
That’s good for you but it doesn’t make it magically work for me. Neither the 5700 or the 5700 ultra worked. The same exact behaviour was exhibited, a blank screen. I then proceeded to successfully install SuSe. Then I tried XP with another card and it worked. Like I said before, it works under XP but it just doesn’t install with it.
This is not supposed to be some argument about whether this really happened BECAUSE IT DID. If you don’t beleive me then don’t but you’re wrong. That’s all there is to it. The point is that an XP install IS NOT always a walk in the park. I provided factual evidence. Get over it.
I think you’re just totally missing the point. TOTALLY. Updating Windows from a base install, over the internet, leaves you vulnerable to worm attacks. How do you avoid this in Linux? Simple. Turn off all services. Can you do that in Windows? Nope. Get it now?
What the hell are chumpy panels? and where can i find them i’d like to see these.
Sorry to use slang, I meant cumbersome. You usually can find it at the bottom of your Windows desktop on a default installation.
Not sure what system you’re running but my start menu seems to be responding just fine. Its much faster than the KDE or Gnome menu’s thats for sure.
Unfortunately my doesn’t, it tends to lag badly quite occasionally. Maybe you got a faster machine than me (athlon XP2500+ on nforce2, 512mb ram). I don’t use KDE or GNOME menus, but in windows, it’s the primary way of starting programs, so it should be as fast as possible.
again what the hell are you tlaking about? what icons flash every 1-2 hours?
It was a typical effect in win2k, but it can be seen on XP as well. All icons on the desktop disappear and reappear almost instantly, while some parts of the windows shell reboots itself during work. It especially happens after a longer uptime on heavy-loaded boxes with lots of concurrent applications. Sorry if you didn’t meet this one.
You know 90% of people would never use them, why install them if you dont want them (oh wait thats the Linux mentality, install as much grabage as possible by default even if 90% of it is totally useless to the average user).
4 out of my 5 collegues in the same room use windows for the desktop. 3 of the 4 use some 3rd party virtual desktop software for effective desktop usage. I didn’t know it’s available from microsoft too, thanks for that piece of info, I’ll tell them.
Actually if you go to the “processes” tab and kill the task it’ll die imemdiatly.
..or it does not. Either it dies immediately or will go on a long wait and ask for confirmation on the kill, or nothing will happen. Stacked processes tend to go with the last two ways usually according to my experiences, but I’m pretty sure it has happened to you too.
At last, I would really appreciate getting closer to a tech discussion and lower the flame rate of these posts. (== watch your language). Thanks.
yep it is possible if there is exploit,
To make it a little clearer, there are KNOWN exploits in currently shipping copies of WindowsXP. We already know that. The holes are there just waiting to be exploited and as soon as you hop on the web you’re liable to get infected by a worm. Even if there were known remote exploits shipping on a Linux distro, you would be able to do something about it in advance of connecting it to the internet, namely shutting down the services.
Well, here’s my opinion.
As far as hardware support goes. Yes, most HW vendors still only give drivers for Windows, but look how far Linux has come without those vendors releasing drivers for Linux.
Ease of instalation. IMHO Windows still have a pretty easy instalation procedure compared to Linux in general. The only problems I have with Windows instalation is the fact that all your drivers have to be installed after Windows has been installed (not so with Linux). And that WinXP really shuts you in, no real choices available.
To Blixel. You say you don’t like the gazillion programs that Linux installs. Then you most probably did a full instalation. As a novice you would do that, just to see which programs you like. After that you can chop and change your install as much as you like.
In closing.
The real difference between Linux and Windows, for me, is not the ease of use, or the stability. It’s the choice. Microsoft offers linear choice, whereas Linux gives you dimensional choice. Think about it.
PS. I’m not a Linux zealeot. I still use mainly Windows.
I understand you but you are missing some point too. First,it is correct that any regular user is using the standard windows cd( I mean, not slipstreamed sp or patches something like that, I don’t really know if companies like DEll ship their systems with service packs applied, someone let us know), so like this anybody can be exploited. The thing I’m saying you are only as secure as your latest version. I mean let’s say I have Slackware 8 and didnt upgrade it(no internet connection), I have the same possibility as windows users, as there might be exploit for Slackware that i need a patch to install. Besides it is not like Windows users have kernel, system upgrades like Linux users every 4-5 months.
Another thing is you need to have connection to internet to apply those patches, but worm needs the same thing, you need to be connected to internet. Besides Security patches are not really big so you can install them even on dial-up.
Don’t tell me that you never do this on a Linux system.
Nobody can do anything if the user doesnt know/care about the security.
Hopefully you will understand my point now.
>Microsoft offers linear choice, whereas Linux gives you dimensional choice.
It is about your choice. It is about how you use your computer. If the OS you are using completely lets you do what you want to do, you use it, why change an OS. If it doesnt do it, well, you look for other options.
heres a link to microsofts virtual desktop app. It comes as part of the powertoys package.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys….
I understand your point you just don’t understand mine. I know for a fact that retailers don’t sell slipstreamed versions of XP on their computers because a friend of mine just bought one and they offered it to him as an additional service (and additional charge). This means that copies of XP are being used UNPATCHED. Show me where in Linux this is happening right now? I’m not saying it’s utterly impossible but it isn’t happening with Linux and right now and it is with XP. The current itineration of XP is vulnerable to remote exploit when left unpatched.
Besides Security patches are not really big so you can install them even on dial-up.
Give me a break. Have you actually ever installed updates? It would take me a day at least to take a copy of XP and update it to current on dial-up.
heres a link to microsofts virtual desktop app. It comes as part of the powertoys package.
Unfortunately it’s just an ugly hack and doesn’t work nearly as well as X. The third party ones actually work better.
@Emre: I agree completely, that’s the point.
@Brett: Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out on my home box too.
If your linux cd are belonging too some old release isnt it pretty much the same that you are vulnerable to remote exploit when left unpatched?
>Give me a break. Have you actually ever installed updates? It would take me a day at least to take a copy of XP and update it to current on dial-up.
I actually installed those patches with high speed connection and with service packs slipstreamed so yeah you are right, It takes time if you think about the number of them
If your linux cd are belonging too some old release isnt it pretty much the same that you are vulnerable to remote exploit when left unpatched?
What’s your point? If you use old media then you’re bound to have security issues no matter what OS it is. The point is that even the newest official XP release is plagued by security holes. Where is the equivalent in Linux right now? Which distro’s latest release is plagued by remote security problems? Enlighten me.
The thing is Linux guys doing this every year Microsoft doing this every 3-4 for years.
There is no newest officall XP release, it is same as the 1st day release. Apparently Microsoft is stupid enought not to include the patches in the new retail version.
That is the whole point, that everyone seems to miss. Although some MS goons say that you should only use thier products, it’s choice that make a product dynamic. And as soon as your product is dynamic it becomes more difficult for persons with malicous(sorry about that) intent to do thier thing. Having choice is good, because it keeps the wrongdoers guessing.
This is getting boring. Every time an article like this gets posted a bunch of windows trolls comes out of the woods shouting and screaming. They inform us that there is no problem at all with windows, drivers are never missing and allways work, it is totally stable and secure and on top of it that they at least installed ~10,000 PCs with windows in the last 10 years, are administering about 100,000 boxes and never ever ran into a problem.
On the other hand, linux is of course totally unusable, though they never bother to inform us about exactly why linux is unusable.
But the thing I love most is that they call everyone who dares to disagree and point out that windows is far from perfect and that, imagine that, linux might have some advantages over windows a zealot. I’m wondering who is the zealot here…
Get off it people, stop making fools of yourselves, keep an open mind and use what you like best.
Well, if you look at the flipside of that, you’ll have some Linux guy on here talking about how he tried for 10 years to get Windows installed properly, and then their 2yo def/blind/mute, parapalegic newphew (who incidentally, only has one nut) rolled out an LFS install …. in 15 minutes …. on a C64 …. with a broken 1541 drive ….
LOL!
Equally stupid, you are right.
Microsoft includes a browser with windows and they are labelled monopolistic… And now the author of this article disses Microsoft for not having enough applications in a default install.
Microsoft doesn’t have a chance. Whatever they do can’t be right – there’s no way to please some people. Google is the darling of everybody right now, but give them a decade of success and people will be dissing them too.
It think your video card has a broken vesa-bios. And the SATA-controller normaly comes with a floppy you insert during installation wich gives win-setup the requiered drivers. If you don’t use it it’s your fault not MS’
And the next time you install Win please remove everythink including “Windows Network” from your network preferences. After this you shouldn’t have a problem with blaster/sasser/<insert your favourite worm>.
If you didn’t know it, you can order a sp1-cd for free from ms (I haven’t seen this kind of service from Linux-vendors). After installing sp1 updating win is only a ~3mb (security-related) download, the rest are drivers. I only have ISDN so I know how it feels to update a system with dial-up
MfG,
Chris
Besides Security patches are not really big so you can install them even on dial-up.
I had decided to stay out of this, but this is just wrong, well, the part of them not being really big, i have installed them over dial-up before, so it can of course be done.
But in my world, a 125 Mb service pack is pretty big, and that is the size of SP1 alone, then add all the other patches you need. This takes a while, even with a fast connection, and the fact is that if you are unlucky, you could get a worm in that time.
Sure you could make this true for any operating system, but the only system i know of where this is currently a problem is Windows.
Now what i don’t get is why systems/cds are still sold without SP1 preinstalled. I mean, SP1 isn’t exactly new. But perhabs this is a sign that a release period lasting serveral years is too long?
But things could be easily improved. Some linux distros allows you to install updates during installation, which means that you get them installed before the system is started up for real. My personal workaround is a cdrom with a bunch of patches on it. (and commonly used drivers and utilities for convenience)
I never once saw a story of someone switching to Windows.
It seems you downloaded the full SP1. If you only download the patches that you need it’s not even close to 100mb.
Microsoft includes a browser with windows and they are labelled monopolistic… And now the author of this article disses Microsoft for not having enough applications in a default install.
I think this is actually an advantage – it’s better than shipping with 8 million apps with the OS, and then half of them are out of date a month after it ships. It’s a waste of time and space.
I never once saw a story of someone switching to Windows
http://www.aarongiles.com
This guy is a Virtual PC developer ….
But in the middle of 2000, I finally broke down and bought a nice, new loaded Dell. I was tired of working against the MHz curve, and tired of Steve Jobs’ insistence that as long as the OS looked pretty, it didn’t matter how badly it perfomed. OS X was not looking promising at the time (and is still only vaguely appealing).)
It seems you downloaded the full SP1. If you only download the patches that you need it’s not even close to 100mb.
Indeed, that way i only had to get it once. And i know i could do a netinstall and it would be smaller.
BUT would it also be smaller if you install it on a newly installed system? If it is, then what are all the extra patches in the full version that is not needed? 🙂
I recently bought a computer with a SATA mobo.
Not having used a floppy disk in the last 5 years, and beeing old iMac owner: of cource I didn’t buy a f**ing floppy drive!
Realise my horror when WinXP doesn’t find my disk and the only drivers come on a floppy disk!?!?
Yeah the default Windows install is very very basic. Nice One !
If it had as many apps as the typical Linux distro, then Microsoft would never be out of the courtroom for anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft has to maintain a balance between providing a useful os and not locking out competitors products.
I don’t understand why it’s so inconceivable that Windows simply doesn’t work on certain hardware configuratons. It’s NOT the VESA-BIOS; not if Linux installs fine. And even if Abraxus’s hardware is broken, then the point just goes to show that Linux is far more fault-tolerant of hardware than XP is.
Abraxus, I totally hear you. I use Gentoo exclusively now, but I used to be a Windows guru. As such, I’m the guy that installs Windows any time my friends or family need to refurbish an old computer. Windows 98 was driver hell. Simply put, out of the HUNDREDS of Windows installations I have performed (it used to be my job, as well), a handful installed without me having to babysit it. Several times, I am simply unable to install Windows. You’re kind of screwed if the install comes up with unrecoverable errors during install, because you can’t just try a different “distro” of Windows. I haven’t had an issue installing Linux since Red Hat 5.2 (which is because I was running crap hardware).
Does this mean Windows is *always* going to break? No, and many of you have never seen this. Great for you. When a Windows install *does* break, however, you are screwed. Time to swap hardware and try again.
BTW, whoever is spouting off about not getting worms in Windows on an unattended machine: you need to do a bit more reading and get a bit more Windows experience. It’s apparent this whole “computers” thing is relatively new for you.
smashIt, when you go to v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com, the full SP1 is the only available SP1 there is. If there are incremental patches, they will still take too long for most dial-up’s to download.
X (KDE) caused linux to hang on me twice where even the keyboard was not working.
Alt+SysRq+K will kill the current VT. Then, at the console prompt, type (as root) “killall X” and “/etc/init.d/dm restart” and all will be fine.
Now the problem: When i rebooted my linux box by hard reboot, its file system got corrupt and no matter what i did with efsck or wtf that tool is, it didn’t rectify my file system and i had to reinstall linux (redhat 9.1).
You probably didn’t really have to reinstall. Reading up on using fsck might have been a good idea before using it. Anyway, with journaling file systems (such as ext3, now the default on most Linux distros) this wouldn’t have happened.
Where are all these linux worms that Windows users keep telling me about ????
How does a worm run on a linux system ????
Do any of you muppets even have a clue about the way Linux handles files/users ?
Now, maybe if you said it was possible to get rooted by downloading and app…. changing to su to install the app… and lettings it run with su priviledges… This is totally possible, and people who have not got a clue will do this time after time as Linux adoption grows.
However a rootkit is far different from a self-installing, self-copying, self-mutating, self-propagating worm that abounds in the Windows world at this minute.
Linux will never suffer the problems that Windows currently does.
Just to be fair… try to take some linux distribution from 1999/2000 and then compare it with win 2000. Im exited about the result….
It think your video card has a broken vesa-bios.
No, it doesn’t. You didn’t read the rest of the comments apparently.
And the SATA-controller normaly comes with a floppy you insert during installation wich gives win-setup the requiered drivers.
Yes, I know this. Again, you must not have read anymore comments.
If you didn’t know it, you can order a sp1-cd for free from ms (I haven’t seen this kind of service from Linux-vendors).
Maybe that’s because Linux distro’s release new versions quicker than MS releases SPs. By the way, SP1 doesn’t help much, you need SP2 to patch the current insecurities.
//It works under Windows but cannot be used to install XP. The card is an Nvidia 5700 Ultra//
Funny, I’ve got an e-VGA nVidia 5700 Ultra — and I used it to install a fresh copy of Windows XP, no sweat.
Maybe your motherboard is crap.
//This is true, but you are SOL if you didn’t buy the MoBo from a retailer but rather a person//
Just saw this comment from you.
Ok, then … so … you don’t have the original drivers for the mobo … you’re having problems with the vid card … and therefore Windows sucks.
Got it. Thanks for the stellar logic.
I already did this mate… back in 1999.
I was using an old version of Redhat.. Can’t remember which one though… (too much smoke = short term memory loss hehehe)
Out of the box the Linux distro could play MP3, OGG, DVD, divx… Windows could play none of them without either codecs or 3rd party apps…. still no difference there then.
My long list of games was unplayable in Linux… ALMOST no change there.
Browsing the web was far different. Linux had Netscape, and I hated Netscape (Nutscrape more like). Windows had IE. It was just as insecure and unstable as it is now, but I liked it back then.
Office interoperability was completely rubbish. I was able to open the occasional Word document in Linux, but that was about it.
I had a great time back then dual booting between both systems, and finding the strengths and weaknesses of both. Nowadays I only use Windows at my place of work.. Linux at home instead.
I feel sorry for the guy. Be it windows, linux or any OS if you are stuck with no net connection and just an install CD its going to really be hit or miss getting anything done in a pinch.
It’s unlikely to be the video card. The XP cd, to my knowledge, boots up in plain 80×25 color vga text mode. The last time I heard of a card not supporting this mode it had clockwork parts :>
Do you at least get the text-only display? Or anything for that matter?
If you at least get something happening then try to install XP with a non-ACPI configuration (Hit F5 when it asks you for third party RAID drivers). That seems a more likely problem (ACPI is…weird, as the Linux developers know well) than vesa/vga on the video card especially if it borks in text mode. You’ll lose ACPI, but as long as you’re using a mains supplied system this isn’t a huge (IMHO) problem.
“Try to compare win2k with some linux from this time, not with suse 9.1 from 2004! And do not go anywhere without your cds! Lunux”s may have all after installing, but this is…All The best software is for win!”
I actually run RH 5.1 on a box just so I can shoot down stupid arguments like this. If you want, dig around for the ISO’s. This is an os from early 1998 and the installation is very easy. It’s a lot like the current fedora installer, just in ncurses instead of gtk2.
Well, that and it’s cool to see a bit of how things were before I got into it.
The Windows install is pretty easy, but I have to admit…their installer needs revamping. Especially in the area of time it takes to copy over just over a gig of stuff. Use tar guys, it’ll save us a lot of time
.
Almost all are off topic and have degenerated to a bitch fest between Linux and Windows and don’t even discuss the very poorly written article, English as a second language aside.
Who cares what *you* like. If you like Windows don’t bitch at the Linux ppl, if you like Linux don’t bitch at the Windoze ppl. Ppl using something different from you are not hurting you or your family in any way, shape or form.
STFU!
>> Microsoft includes a browser with windows and they are
>> labelled monopolistic… And now the author of this article
>> disses Microsoft for not having enough applications in a
>> default install.
>
> I think this is actually an advantage – it’s better than
> shipping with 8 million apps with the OS, and then half of
> them are out of date a month after it ships. It’s a waste of
> time and space.
Yup, and that is why every time I do a fresh install of FreeBSD I only do a minimal installation of the OS and then install everything that I need from ports. I don’t bother installing the packages that comes with the CD as they would be mostly outdated.
I think that people forget about the main purpose of operating systems, to launch other software. If you decide that user experience offered by Windows works for you better, you are still able to use a lot of free software from Linux on Windows.
– Mozilla
– OpenOffice
– Apache, Tomcat, PHP (some of these not for production, but I am talking about workstations)
– GCC
– GAIM (I prefer original clients but this option exists)
– the whole shebang of cygwin
– MPlayer (this one is damn good when it comes to broken files)
Thanks to many developers who understand that writing multiplatform software helps their product to spread more.
About me :
I have been a fresh GNU/Linux user for less than a year, I had some experiments with some GNU/Linux distributions(Suse, Mandrake, Redhat’s Fedora) before. I’m using Slackware now because I feel it’s faster than Suse, Mandrake or Fedora, and because I think I will learn more if I really have to face the command line way.
Before that, I have been a Windows user since 3.x, and have been really happy with the system. I did some programming for Windows : some modules for the Litestep shell ( http://www.litestep.net/ ).
Comments/Summary for the article :
1°) Installation / hardware detection
I find the installer of Windows and GNU/Linux’s mainstream distributions (Fedora-Mandrake-Suse) quite equivalent, and I might think that even Slackware’s install would be as difficult as Windows’ for Joe Sixpack (I had to reinstall Windows on some people’s computer, because they could not do it themselves).
For hardware detection also, Windows and GNU/Linux’s mainstream distributions seem equivalent to me.
2°) Programs included – and @Shane (Lack of application on default windows install.)
For me, Windows is an OS, which is different from any GNU/Linux’s distributions because a distribution is a set of applications put together in a single install. Now, Microsoft could use the distribution mechanism, for example, shipping one version of Windows with other Microsoft software, and one with open source software.
In fact, some hardware vendors are already doing Windows distributions : for example, if you buy an HP computer, you will most likely have some reinstall discs, which contains Windows, some software to burn CD’s, some office thing, …
3°) About the updater
I believe Microsoft could do such a thing, but then, there could be some repositories/trust problems. The point is that you will be able to install software automatically from certain places on the internet that you should be able to trust (your OS vendor, the software maker).
Also, there’s the payment problem : if you have to pay for an upgrade of your software, or prove that you actually “own” it so that you can upgrade. Linspire or Xandros has such a (pay-to-download) system, I believe.
4°) Switching to Linux
Well, my choice to switch is in part political, in part practical and in part legal.
Political : I like the open source/free software philosophy.
Practical : after some adaptation and after having ran Open Office, GAIM, GIMP, … on Windows, I feel as comfortable in Linux as I feel in Windows – except for the firewall/antivirus part, which I still should learn.
Legal : I prefer to work (as an IT professionnal) with software I can legally use, … and since I find myself not wealthy enough to upgrade my computer (PIII 450), I don’t consider I have the money to buy Windows, Office, Visual C++, … I used to use daily.
5°) Using Windows, I can change the look of my desktop for free too
Yay, let’s be a Litestep advocate for a while : http://www.litestep.net/
Other sites give an overview of other free alternatives : http://www.shellfront.org/ , http://www.blizzle.com/ , http://www.shell-shocked.org/ .
About the comments :
@Wolf (Keep Whinig)
WIndows is still number one and will remain number one. Unless Linux really invent sometihng and quit copying stuff from unix and windows, it will always be way behind windows.
It is true that GNU/Linux has taken ideas from Windows, but Microsoft has done that too, ie with the Windows 95 start menu (thanks Apple). Another one is their patent on VWM ( thanks GNU/Linux, Unix, Litestep, … http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/02/25/1346201.shtml )
@Lorenzo (It will take a *long* way before…)
Try to explain to AverageJoe that he has to open a terminal, tar+bunzip2 a file named flash-install.tar.bz2.
Right, but doesn’t Macromedia builds and packs that software ? Put another way : get Joe Sixpack to install Firefox on Windows and on GUN/Linux … shouldn’t be much differences.
@KP (Re: To all who are contesting the statement about admins for Linux)
Given a chance to each one of the Windows supporting trolls here, I’ll bet they’d switch to linux if they had to buy each and every piece of software themselves.
I agree, that’s the “legal side” of my move to GNU/Linux.
So, Windows2000 could not properly set the paramaters for a video card released 4.5 years into the future from it’s release date? You thought it would? So, can your Linux disto of choice properly set the video for a card that won’t be released until around 2009? I wouldn’t fault either OS for lacking that capability. Thanks for showing us that it pays to be better prepared.
Just FYI, you might want to consider FC2 or Suse, both of which I know for a fact recognized my WinTV card and works perfectly immediately.
Why does anyone care what somone runs and how hard easy it is…there is nothing out there at all, its all about learning.most averege users are just as clueless in windows as they are in linux it dosent even matter.its about learning and knowing something, expereance also.I honestly think linux suits me better cuz I know how to operate it and one of my freinds uses win2k ….we bouth have equal computer knowlege. he can operate linux just as well as me…my linux box is just as secure as his windows box because he know what he is doing and so do I…but here it just blew out of perortions…whats up with this troll war…infinite amount of resons why this and why that…cmon the author just wrote the article about his own experiance…Yes current linux is easier to install than windows to somone who is clueless and for the 3 year old XP or 5 year old 2k u need to patch from a cd and install drivers but for somone with some knowlege its not a problem so wtf…
Funny, I’ve got an e-VGA nVidia 5700 Ultra — and I used it to install a fresh copy of Windows XP, no sweat.
Maybe your motherboard is crap.
More probably, Windows has some issues with the Firmware version. I have a NVIDIA Ti4400 card from MSI and whenever I try to install it under Windows it crashes the system and reboots in Safe Mode. It installed under Linux just fine. I recently upgraded the Firmware to solve a Linux problem (I couldn’t have VGA-mode text consoles with the latest NVIDIA drivers) and decided to try installing it under Windows again and – lo and behold – it worked.
This is besides the point, though. The point is that, sometimes – and a lot more often that the MS apologists on this site would have us believe – installing Windows can be a pain. Meanwhile, installing Linux is now easier – and faster – than ever. Compare the installation time of a regular distro like Mandrake 10 to that of Windows + MS Office + Photoshop + IIS + all the other software equivalent to what’s on a typical Linux install…also, count the number of times you have to reboot for each…
No wonder the MS fanboys whine about Linux taking 10 extra seconds to boot…
“This author is an idiot. Who would try and install an operating system without a working internet connection to get drivers? You blame Windows? Blame yourself.”
Just to remind you, not everyone can use the Internet to download additional software and drivers. For example, your modem or network card might not be supported out-of-the-box, then where do you get your drivers? Internet access can be so expensive ($10 per megabyte) that you really don’t want to download that 10 MB DirectX update via WindowsUpdate. And, in case you forgot, not every PC on this earth is connected to the Internet!
Personally, I think this article does have value, in the sense that it shows that Windows is not perfect. And in case you want me to show it: buy yourself an 1995 Macintosh Performa with the installation CD for $10 on eBay, and see for yourself what Windows still hasn’t archieved.
unfortunately as the popularity of this site has increased the quality of the comments have gone down. I see lots of empty criticism.
I thought the points raised in the article were extremely valid. With Linux you can actually set up a complete and fully functional workstation with no internet connection and no other media besides the distro. If you are not running on really old or really new hardware, hardware detection is painless, especially if you are installing off a knoppix disk. I have cursed countless times after installing windows for a client onsite, when the network adapter is not detected. I learned long ago to bring a knoppix disk with me so I can download and install drivers. A month ago, I spent 3 HOURS trying to install the drivers for one friggin modem in Windows, and I have 10 years experience installing and supporting Windows!!! Knoppix detected it immediately!
Linux is far from perfect, and Windows is grooby for gaming and all, but its getting to the point where if you know both OS’s equally well, Linux is a helluva lot easier to deal with in general. That is what I gathered from the article, and I totally agree.
I don’t think Windows or Linux is at fault here. I personally use Windows mainly, and I enjoy it, its never broken on me, I’ve always been able to update, and almost always recognizes my hardware.
The only problem I ever had with installing hardware was on an old machine with a Voodoo5 and an Intel 810 graphics controller on board. Obviously it cant run with two graphics controllers, so I had to boot into safe mode and disable the i810, there, problem solved. My network was instantly recognized and I got all the nessecary drivers and its running fine.
As for software, sure this can be a problem, but then again, its kinda hard to compare open office with MS Office. MS Office is expensive, yes, but its also VERY robust, and I prefer it over Open Office. Same with Photoshop over The Gimp. Instead of instantly saying that free software is better than payware software, you have to look at quality first. For example, IE. With its security flaws, inability to block popups, etc., many people would see it has a hazard (remember though that the majority of pc users dont recognize this), but this isnt a problem. Just download the latest version of Firefox or Opera, install and there ya go, no more IE.
Also, to comment on the comment about installing without an internet connection. This is no fault of Windows. Most people know that if you plan on installing a new OS, you better have the drivers right there, just in case. Never assume you’ll be instantly up and running with any OS, always be prepared for the worst. Linus didnt recognize the wireless PCMCIA on my laptop, luckily I had ndiswrapper and the drivers burned on a cd-rw, and I got that setup, and I was good to go.
My final point is, to me, Linux and Windows play the same role, they allow me to run my computer as a desktop PC. Of course you need to do some configuring to get it just the way you want it, but you have to do it in Windows as well. No single OS will please everyone right out of the box, but its no excuse to bash on other OSes, they are all the same, they just have the strengths and weaknesses.
What where the current distros on the September 9, 2002 when XP’s first Service Pack was released. Use a Linux distro that was released at/near the same date and try to install it on your x86 PC.