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Is Linux or Windows Easier To Install?
Mark Cappel writes: "Joe Barr, a LinuxWorld.com columnist, compares Linux and Windows installations. He expected Windows to be faster and easier since Microsoft has been at it for 21 years. (DOS 1.0 was released 21 years ago today.) It turns out Red Hat is quicker and less manually intensive."
then shouldn't the article be comparing RedHat and Windows installs?
If he is only testing with Redhat, it seems unfair to lump all of those installs as "faster" than Windows, based on the performance of only one type.
Just something to think about.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Does anyone else think this review would have been more fair if he had used a retail win2k pro disc instead of using the Sony system restore cd's?
How's my typing? Call 1-800-eta-shut
This test has one serious fault in it that I can see. The tester didn't use a stock W2K disk on a clean system, he used a Sony restore disk, which is a lot different than what Windows 2000 would normally be installed as. A lot of that time installing Windows could be attributed to the restore disk installing all of the myriad programs that come with new computers
Sure, I truly believe that Linux can come out on top with new installs. But do we really need to bias test results in our favor, and then expect corporate users to take us seriously? If Linux users want to show the superiority of the OS, they need to present fair, unbiased tests that are indicative of real-life situations, instead of twisting tests around in subtle ways.
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I'm a Lunix-loving looser (tm Trolls, Inc.), but I think this could in no way be called a proper test.
A better test:
2 identical stock computers, fairly recent but not top-of-the-line hardware
1 copy of Windows XP
1 copy of the latest version of Red Hat, Mandrake, or other selected distribution
2 clueless users
2 clueful users
1 administrator to wipe the machines after each test
1 instruction manual per OS
No gurus
4 runs - one with the cluebies doing Windows, one with Linux, and one of each with the clued-in pair.
Neither user can help the other; both are isolated
We know Joe's a Linux advocate. Let's have a real test.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
First of all, windows2000 is not 3 cd's, it is one. This was not a real install of win2000. This was a use of a propreitary 'recovery tool' supplied by sony. The ads and cd swapping do not occur when you use a fresh install of windows.
Lets show you what a windows install is REALLY like.
When I installed winXP corporate edition, here's what happened: I inserted the cd, set up the bios to boot off cd. Once the install window appeared, I had complete mouse support with my usb mouse, choose to do a typical install, waited about an hour for it to complete, let the pc reboot a couple of times, put in my serial number, and that was it. I had complete video, sound, and net support. I upgraded my video drivers, and ran windows update, and that was it. Total install time: about 1 hour 15 minutes.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
I'm sure the Slashdot groupies would get a laugh if Microsoft compared Windows XP to Redhat 6.0.
This is like comparing a 1.5 ghz Athlon and a 1.5 GHZ Pentium 4. You don't... There's no point. Stop comparing apples and oranges people.
Flamebait, maybe. So what, reply. Prove me wrong.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
The reason most people think installing Linux is harder is because they make it harder. Most people starting with Linux have used Windows first, and therefore want to dual boot, which requires repartitioning and other fun stuff. Now, if you were going to Windows from Linux and wanted to do this, you would have the same problem.
Is not which OS installs faster, but which OS installs with less exploitable services off a fresh install.
I dislike MS as much as anyone else, but come on! This installation competition thing is like comparing apples to BMWs...
First off, a Linux newbie would have absolutely NO clue about half of the stuff Mr. Barr did for the Red Hat installation. Clearly Mr. Barr is a seasoned Linux guy and can breeze through partitioning, network configuration, boot manager selection, package selection, etc. Try any of that on a Linux newbie ("...What's DHCP? And what the hell is this GRUB thing it's asking me about? I'm calling tech support...").
I agree that the Windows installation is slow, has too many reboots, and is not fool-proof as far as hardware detection goes. However, the installation of all Windows products except for the so called "enterprise" editions is set up for people who don't know all that much about hardware. The old 80-20 rule kicks in here: if 80% of the folks are covered by the installation, that can justify the remaining 20% who need hand holding. I still have not encountered a Linux installation that does not assume prior knowledge of technical acronyms, Linux-isms, and common package names (how many new Linux users do you think have any clue that Samba offers Windows network connectivity? How many Linux installations present Samba as a "Windows networking" option and not as "Samba"? None that I know of, that's how many).
As a pro-Linux, pro-BSD, pro-open-source guy, I'm giving this comparison two thumbs down. Sorry, Joe...
Then it was Red Hat's turn. I inserted the first installation CD and rebooted Windows. I chose to manually partition the disk using fdisk. First, I deleted the partition I had originally created for Linux. Then I created a 256-megabyte swap partition and gave the rest of the drive to Red Hat, choosing the ext3 journaling filesystem.
Ok ok, let's stop right here at the first paragraph. So, he already had his drive partitioned from a previous install (meaning he didn't have to mess with fips, partition magic, etc.) and he used fdisk to partition. And exactly how is this easier than a Windows install?
Granted, I've used Linux for years, and fdisk isn't difficult for me to use, but having to use fdisk raises the difficulty of an install considerably. I know that RedHat doesn't require the use of fdisk in their install, but this reviewer should have known better.
I make it a point to try out the various latest Linux installations on a spare machine here just to see how far they've come, and when one compares Redhat to something like SuSE or Mandrake, it still lags behind. RedHat is competing in the Windows NT/2k/XP Workstation/Server market, and isn't apparently too interested in the home desktop market, and their installer reflects this. There are still many questions asked throughout a Redhat install that would require some sort of background in Linux to answer.
Something like SuSE's install would work better for such a comparison, as it best combines ease of use with configurability. The SuSE install tries to autodetect and autoconfigure everything the best it can, and then presents you with a summary of everything it has done, along with the option to change anything if you want to. The new Linux user would probably just click the "Next" and accept these defaults, while the experienced Linux user still has the option to change anything he wants.
... vendors install it for you!
I don't care how "easy" Linux ever is, 90% of people will never, ever install it. Unless more vendors start offering it pre-installed (hooray for Wal-Mart), Linux will never be adopted by any sizable percentage of desktops.
The whole conversation about "ease of installation" is completely wrong-minded.
I agree too, but you must remember one thing. All of those components go into making a stable, secure, and reliable Windows installation. Windows is *not done* when you pop the disk in, set up time zones and users, and run. Great care must be taken to get the system ready to go, and install all of your other apps. Drivers are almost *never* current on a vanilla Windows installation. Viruses are going to be a big threat, so you have to nail that one down. A firewall is essential (not the XP firewall, either).
In most respects, a modern Linux distribution will do all of that for you the first time. Red Hat has a bit more stuff than most distributions, but it really is quite less than what you find on a "recovery CD" when you do a standard Red Hat install. Slackware is great for me. Though it takes a bit of know-how to partition your HDs, and get the X server configured, it can still be faster and easier to do, if you are an experienced user.
After that, you can probably install something like Slack in a half hour - 45 minutes. It takes about 15 minutes to configure the video, sound, and a few other things. I can't say that I was ever able to install Windows 2000, download drivers, install and tweak them in that amount of time.
There isn't anything wrong with Windows 2000... It is good software in most respects. But the old arguments about Linux being to combersome, and slow/difficult install processes are over. Something like Lycoris makes it even easier, if you can believe that.
I tried installing the latest Debian release this last weekend.... took me the whole weekend, and 6 re-installs. The best I could get was running, but had some serious problems, such as: no networking installed, didn't recognize my mouse, couldn't run X because it didn't know how to work with my monitor, and top it off, it couldn't read the damn floppy drive.
So I downloaded the latest Mandrake... first shot, I got everything loaded that I wanted, and it took me less than an hour.
How does that compare to Windows? Who knows? I wouldn't touch that shit, but I would believe that Windows users experiences range anywhere between the two. Hell, my OS X installation was about as smooth as the Mandrake install.
- passion