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Switching to Windows, Not as Easy as You Think
rchapman writes "Mad Penguin writer Simon Gerber has published an amusing review of Windows XP as seen from a Linux users point of view. He really makes you feel like you are trying to use Windows for the first time after exclusively using Linux. The article covers everything from the hideous installer and its lack of partitioning/formatting capabilities to the utter wasteland that is the Windows desktop, devoid of useful applications and everything in between. A fun read."
Windows, properly set up and configured, is NOT the BSOD nightmare it used to be. It's entrenched and will be a very hard slog to fight against. For those wanting to change, there's a super-polished, UNIX user friendly, open-source running contender in Apple's OS X.
How many of you own Apple notebooks? How many have blown away OS X to put a PPC linux distro on there?
The fact is that Windows isn't that bad, and Linux is going to do a whole lot better on the desktop if we want to make inroads there. Linux is already taking over places where the user experience is negligible or tightly controlled, for example, in the embedded, RTOS, and industrial worlds.
Fun article, but Microsoft moves forward, too. If Vista is a marketing success, then MS will dominate for a long time on the x86 desktop.
..don't panic
http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/05/18/20 33216&from=rss Not sure if the author of the new one got the idea from this.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
How about doing a review from the perspective of someone who has never used a computer before - then lets see which one is easier to use (hint: the answer will be Windows XP by a massive margin).
This "review" is flawed in so many ways it's not even funny - of COURSE a UNIX nerd is going to hate Windows, and vice versa. In fact it's even worse than the various Microsoft "independant" TCO studies, because at least they try to hide their bias.
I was typing one day, at work. Just typing, tapping the hours merrily away, and suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, my computer rebooted.
Ellen Fleiss, is it you?
Who is the intended audience? Casual or Power-users? I doubt my Gran would be particularly interested in MBR's and partitions and what not...
All you have to do to switch to Windows is buy a new PC. They all come with it installed out of the box. They also come with all the software most people need either already installed or available to buy at your local Best Buy/Circuit City. I set up my non-tech parents like this over a year ago and have only had to help them twice when my dad accidentally told his firewall not to allow his browser to connect to the internet.
The only support I've had to do to my own computer is fix the bootloader everytime Ubuntu decides to override it and I forget to back it up. Sometimes I think we spend a little too much time nit picking things and tweaking systems to get that extra percent performance increase.
Time for some coffee.
The article covers everything from the hideous installer and it's lack of partitioning/formatting capabilities to the utter wasteland that is the Windows desktop, devoid of useful applications and everything in between.
Someone has already mentioned the fact that you CAN partition and format drives in the installer, so thats wrong for a start.
And what is Microsoft supposed to do about applications? If it bundled Microsoft Office in with Windows, the anti-competition people would be on their backs the day it hit the shelves. They have no choice but keep the OS relatively free of apps - too many partners they don't want to piss off and the anti-competition people just waiting with multi-million dollar fines! Look at the shit they are having to go through here in Europe with Windows Media Player for example!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
"devoid of useful applications"
You are moaning that Windows is by default "devoid of useful applications ".
Of course it is! Remember the fiasco any time Microsoft try bundling anything useful with Windows? It ends up in an anti-trust trial! Of COURSE Microsoft aren't going to bundle anything useful with Windows any more.
I thoguht that was what a Linux user would want? Choice of their own applications, not MS's choice.
I had a similar experience, and it cost me days to install XP on a new computer wher Ubuntu installed cleanly. That was about 6 months ago, and the Ubuntu disks had been fresh from my letterbox (fee & all!) whereas my "spare" copy of XP was already a few moons old. So maybe that's why it stymed an old geek like me about SATA drives. Still haven't got Internet going on this "XP" thing, since it can't find network card drivers (not sure I want to). Maybe the M$ release cycle is just uselessly slow for today's hardware market?
Just because a summary says something doesn't mean that the article says the same thing. The article acknowledges the presence of a partition tool but bemoans the limited features of the tool.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
To start with, you've to install tons of apps that the operative systems don't includes itself. And due to that stupid microsoft rule that existed for years ("installer must be executables delivered by 3rd party apps") I've no way to automate the download and installation of those (yes, I know about msi, I also know MSIs can be slipped in the installation CD. I still find no way of installing AND automatic its update like apt-get update & upgrade does. And LOTS of installers are not using MSI still. Shame on you microsoft, for forcing people to create docens of different, incompatible, buggy, installers)
I mod this article -1 Troll.
Before it goes to far out of hand, where the slashdot hidden windows expert points out workarounds for his problems. This is how people write about Linux in Windows Rags. They go by their first impression and give there ratings from a 1 Day Point of View. When you move to a dramatically different system Windows, Mac, Linux/Unix, VMS... You find that things are not easy anymore. You they are no longer logically laid out Nothing works anymore and all your comfort apps are no longer there. You need time to think like the designers of the os, knowing the ls is short for list, or Dir sands for directory, or My Computer allows you view your mounted network drives. If you know only windows Other OS's feel weird and wrong the same if you know only an other OS. I say we should stop with these rags from peoples first impression and go with a better one showing the differences and explaining their strong and week points and not give judgement of what is better.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"Whenever I launched Firefox the program would run, but I couldn't type anything into the address bar. The menus were all frozen, too."
Are you saying that no XP user can use Firefox?!?!?
Well, probably I'm writing this post only in my imagination...
I remember struggling with the inadequacies of Windows when I had to switch to that OS after Amiga went bust. It was hard and extremely annoying, but eventually I knew enough to administrate both Windows 95 and the Windows servers in the business I worked for then.
I also found Linux hopeless to use and work with the first months after I installed it, but again, business dictated I learn it, so I did. I like Linux more than I like Windows, but it's apples and oranges, really.
The section about it being devoid of useful applications makes my blood boil. Windows is an operating system which allows you to run applications. It is not necessarly something that has to come shipped with a million and one applications. Perhaps we have become complacent because every Linux distro comes shipped with a ton of applications. It would be simple enough to make a Linux distribution that has a similar number of default installed applications as Windows.
The other problem with this statement is the way everyone cries foul when Microsoft default installs an app with Windows and then complains that a Windows default install doesn't have any applications. Make up your mind! You can't have it both ways.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
The article was a send-up of all the "trying out Linux" articles that Windows power users have been writing for the past several years. You get to hear what difficulty they have getting used to a different way of doing things, but of course they call if a "problem" instead.
/. post?
Same here, except in reverse, and with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The article is showing how asinine it is to flame an OS when you don't know what the hell you are doing, and have no experience with it.
You DID notice the "It's funny, laugh!" icon at the top of the
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
Have you ever seen the average "start menu" of an average Windows machine? Once I go to "Programs", I get a list that fills the screen (or scrolls on newer versions) of vendor names! Makes it almost impossible to find ANYTHING unless you already know what piece of software you're looking for! The only way to get a usable programs menu in Windows is to completely reorganize it manually.
Making Windows Usable for Old Linux Farts
Still shows that making Windows workable is rather hard task.
Switching from Linux to Windows is like switching from girlfriend to wife.
Nah, that's bullshit. Windows goes down on me all the time.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Switching to Windows: Intended for the average computer user:
1) Get a blank Hard Disk or create a new partition. Use partition magic or get a friend to do it
2) Boot the windows CD and install
3) Install firewall software
4) Get updates from Microsoft or a friend
5) Install other programs
Its not that hard. I run a tri-boot system at home, with Windows-Work, Windows-Gaming and Linux. If I had to switch over from Windows to Linux, the main issues is not just the changes in interface, configuration style (init files etc), but finding replacement programs for things I am using under Windows. Like all my games, EndNote, Wakan/KanjiQuick(Japanese Writing), RatDVD and CDisplay for my manga viewing. Sure, there are similar tools available under Linux, but some features are missing, especially for rare programs like CDisplay. One can see that this reverse situation is arguably worst than going from Linux --> Windows. Sure, you may have to pay some money to get the software you need, but, at least they are available.
It all comes down to a popular OS always having more variety of software, paid or open source, being developed for it. Personally, I think most computer users will end up dual-booting Windows (Vista) and Linux as time goes by, unless emulation becomes easy enough (for the average PC user) and fast enough to be a viable option.
Now, let me go play som WoW, followed by a reboot to do some programming in Visual C then another reboot to start up my FTP server under Linux T_T
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
Like hell. On a Linux-only machine, they're also there to separate /home from the main distro so that if you have to reinstall it's a piece of cake to re-link the home directory. Obviously, there should be a swap partition too. Anyone installing a linux distro should be doing this.
Depending on the situation, splitting off /var, /usr/local, and/or /etc can make sense too.
Long story short, I've been running Gentoo on it since it showed up at the house some time ago. Now, there was some drive weirdness -- I think the boot drive was actually hdd with another drive present but unused on hdc, and the CDROM was on hdb with hda empty (??) but the point is, Gentoo installed and ran just dandy.
For work reasons I now need to install Windows 2000 on the box and I've now rebooted half a dozen times, reformatting drives all over the place and still haven't managed to get the damn thing to boot. Why? Well, it looks like the BIOS is toast because it keeps reporting different sizes for hda (I've changed the cables to where they should be) every time I boot, and -- not surprisingly -- the drive is just totally useless to boot from. Windows won't install unless it can write an MBR to the drive, it seems.
So -- even though I know the hardware isn't working quite right, at least Linux could work with (or, more to the point, around) the problem whereas Windows just pulls up a blank. Nothing I can do about it, either -- I've tried all the configurations that were worth trying. Next, it's time to try using a separate PATA controller card and spend another hour or so to see if Windows likes that any better ...
This guy is full of it.
... Uhhh ... pci[enter] no... fuck it. Google where are you.
I can do the EXACT same thing with LINUX. I can install it on some system and have all kinds of problems, simply because I don't know what I am doing.
The fact of the matter is, BOTH operating systems are way to technically difficult to install. You have to "know" your environment the second even ONE little thing goes wrong, or else all hell breaks loose. You know how long it took me to find the damn "lspci" command? Sheesh, I was looking for an hour. I didn't even KNOW if Linux had this ability, after I realized it MIGHT, then I had to find the thing. At least with windows you can graphically navigate to the most obvious place.. "Control Panel"... makes sense.. "System", yeah!, "hardware" Oh yeah!!, "Devices" RIGHT ON!. Linux =
I've installed Windows on at least two dozen machines, sure sometimes there is a problem, but nothing like this guy is talking about.
There are some basic ideas and steps you need to know to fix "drivers" and such, once you know them its a snap. The same goes for linux.
My point is Windows is NOT more difficult or screwed up than linux, and vice versa. They are both pretty horrible, but personally I give WINDOWS the hands down on being slightly less horrible as far as install-experience.
- Voxel
P.S. If the guy had been using the latest version of Windows XP (Service Pack 2 Disk), then his 200 gigabyte drive would of detected fine. When you use a linux distro, you do use the latest version don't you?
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes