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Windows Nearly Ready For Desktop Use
wallykeyster writes "NewsForge (ed: a Slashdot sister site) has an interesting review of Windows XP Home, written from the perspective of a longtime Linux user (ed: Editor roblimo). The article clearly is intended to be somewhat humorous while making a point to the 'Linux isn't ready for the desktop' crowd. The reviewer does a fair job of pointing out the strengths of Windows along with the weaknesses that would be apparent to someone trying to make the switch from Linux." From the article: "Windows XP can't be considered consumer-ready until it has driver support for common LCD monitors during its installation and bootup procedure, especially if those monitors are easily and routinely recognized by popular Linux distributions. It's possible that the monitor manufacturers aren't willing to give Microsoft and other proprietary operating system companies the information they need to create appropriate drivers and that the manufacturers, not Microsoft, deserve the blame for this problem."
Personal computers are the only machines that don't turn off and on when you press the on/off switch.
Sometimes I press the off switch and some asshat program pops up a window and says that it won't terminate until I move the mouse to some little point on the window and click it. I can't do that because I've already turned the monitor off. I come back hours later and the fucking machine is still ON!
When I press the OFF switch, I want the stupid machine to turn off. Turn Off Now. No windows, no prompts, no "Are you sure?", no nothing...just turn the fuck off.
Linux is the worst PC operating system in this regard. Press the off key and the system reacts like you're trying to shut down the Defense Department. Page after page of scrolling lines indicating that this and that mickey-mouse section of the OS is exiting. Who gives a fuck? Just turn off! Now!
Turning the PC on is just as bad. It has to load 100 million bytes of code that haven't changed during the last 1000 times that I turned the stupid thing on. Here I have a 128 Megabyte Flash Disk about the size of my little toe and costing $17. So why the fuck can't I have all the OS on the Flash drive? So that it will go on at the moment that I flip the ON switch! C'mon guys, we're not booting from floppies anymore! It's time to leave the 1980's PC mentality!
Turn off and on when the user changes the state of the off/on switch. Such a truly revolutionary and mind-boggling concept!
Of course someone will point out that after months of study, research, experimentation, and trial compiling, (and hours of waiting and staring at the monitor), I could configure the system to do something resembling instant off/on when the switch gets pressed.
So why the fuck is this not the fucking default state of the machine! C'mon, guys, the ENIAC days are gone. This thing on your desk is an appliance. And like all appliances, it should go off and on when you hit the off/on switch!
He's saying that toungue-in-cheek. He's trying to point out that hardware support is the fault of the vendor, not the OS developer.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Uhh no. Debian is an OS. Linux is a kernel. Comparing Debian to OSX is apples to apples. Comparing Linux to OSX is not. Compare Linux to XNU.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You really should be using dpkg --purge instead of apt-get to remove programs that you're actually trying to remove.
The difference is that by default apt-get will remove files included in the package in a manner equivalent to dpkg --remove. However, as with dpkg --remove, it will not remove configuration files, and can thus leave some cruft behind on your system.
Debian kicks ass in part because you can keep a system clean for years without unneeded effort. Using "remove" where you really want to "purge" is one way to give up that advantage to a small degree.
See man apt-get, specifically the --purge and the APT::Get::Purge configuration option in apt.conf.
Or, just use dpkg --purge for removal, and stick to apt-get for installation and upgrades.
</pedantic>
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Use hibernate. Just hit the button and the computer will be off some 10 seconds later. When you next push the power button, everything will come back just as you left it.
I have never seen a program that asks if you are sure if you want to hibernate or tries to stop the process. I've hibernated while games were running without any problems.
Go to the power options control panel (type powercfg.cpl into the Run box). In the Hibernate tab, check "Enable hibernation". Click apply. Then on the Advanced tab, where it says "When I press the power button on my computer:" select "Hibernate". Click OK.
Windows NT has had a journalling filesystem since Linus was tinkering in his mother's basement.
Actually, as much as I hate Windows they got some things right with NTFS (and some things monstrously wrong).
Right: the journalling and rolling back Just Work. In years of managing Windows NT/2000/XP boxes I have not had any problems with whatever the Windows equivalent of fsck is -- proven by the fact that I can't even remember what that utility is called (chkdsk? fixdsk? something like that). Power off a Linux box without warning, though, and you have to go to the physical console, enter the root password, and manually fsck it (sometimes even if you have 0 0 in the last columns of fstab, and even with a journalling filesystem).
Wrong: the biggest, worst Wrong Thing with NTFS is its allocation algorithm. Fragments? wtf? is it 1982 again? How frigging hard is a "best fit" algorithm? Come on, people.
All's true that is mistrusted
You are 100% incorrect. You're allowed to create your own slipstreamed driver and service pack disk, regardless of whether you're a home user or a business user. Microsoft even gives you a tool called "sysprep," which is for rolling out your own windows images.
In addition, they have a cool tool which will add a file to your windows cd image (which you then burn) toauto-answer all of the questions asked during install.
I stay away from Windows as much as possible. If I had to use Windows more I'm sure I would have a longer list.
I got one for you:
Here you go
I was a bit mistaken - it doesn't directly incorporate the C shell into the explorer, but rather the normal command prompt. But if you have the Windows SfU installed, the basic C shell functionality is available from the windows command prompt. So it understands the basic GNU tools, you can use pipes, redirections, perl (if installed - I use the ActiveState perl), sed, grep... basically all you need.
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This is why i love gentoo and won't ever use any other linux distro, this is even faster than going to ati and downloading the driver for winxp if you already have your kernel setup and pointed to by /usr/src/linux:
..most already do at this point, so all you need to do are these steps:
..i've switched between my R9600 and GEForce 5500 so quickly because of Gentoo's setup ..the geforce has better drivers but its DVI output doesn't want to work (won't even POST) so it's sitting in a box.
If you don't already have a kernel
1) emerge gentoo-sources
2) genkernel
3) emerge ati-drivers
4) opengl-update ati
5) fglrxconfig , follow the directions, if you can't or don't want to understand it, then go buy a mac or use winxp.
6) restart X (no reboot required), ctrl+alt+backspace will do just fine