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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."
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.
"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?
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.
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).
Does this include the install process, or are you comparing pre-installed XP versus DIY Linux?
If a novice was forced to install both, I'd bet $100 that they'd get Linux installed properly first. A Linux install comes with most necessary drivers/software that you'll need. A novice Windows user would _never_ find the drivers needed for even an OEM system, like a Sony or HP, where all the drivers are centralized on one site, let alone searching out the drivers from each manufacturer. Linux installs are much easier than XP installs.
Usage? Are you talking about Gentoo versus XP? I'd suggest pre-installed SuSE versus pre-installed XP.
SuSE? Comes with manuals, both electronic and dead tree.
SuSE? Comes with all productivie software, documented in the manuals! Need to write a text document? Look up "word processing" in the SuSE manual. It'll tell you what app to use, show screenshots of the app, and give you a basic rundown of its usage, with pointers to a section in the electronic help system that will give you indepth support and tutorials, as well as e-mail/phone support.
What will XP do if you look up "Word Processing" in that 15 page piece of shit 'starter guide' it comes with?
The only place that XP is at all easier is finding software for it. Linux software is easier to install (RPM are very convienient, klik:// is even easier, and the GUI package managers are drop dead easy, especially Mandriva's URPMI GUI and SuSE's YaST GUI), and easier to remove. Linux systems require no habitual maintenance. You don't have to worry about anti-virus or anti-spyware, and even if you did worry about it, you could simply install the anti-virus software that comes with your distribution, using the distributions own package manager. Don't believe me? SuSE's YaST has "ClamAV", as well as several other anti-virus packages included.
If you can show me Windows software that installs as easily as this: http://amavis-ng.klik.atekon.de/ , I'll be mighty impressed. And commercial vendors are picking it up, too. For example, klik://nero will install the latest version of Nero Burning Rom on your Linux system, and run it. From one file. One click install->run. No setting, no fuss, no random files draped all over your system.
The only place linux still really lags behind is game avaliablility. Between alsa, SDL, and OpenGL, there's a pretty comprehensive gaming environment on linux, but its taking manufacturers some time to get caught up. iD and Epic are doing pretty well, and Transgaming's doing some neat things with DirectX9 Wine, but gaming on Linux just isn't all that there yet, even though I do manage to keep myself enterained.
It disappoints me that I can't play whatever games I want, but I keep myself busy with Secondlife, EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Doom 3, the Unreal series, Civilization IV, and various other distractions.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
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."
If you want full Linux-installer-style partition and format control over a Windows install, it's there, and it's not that hard to find.
... no media under the installer, can't use drivers from another optical drive, external drive, network share, nfs, and I could just go on
I call BS, and big time. Let's see some crapness in the windows installer:
- no sata or raid support (wait, see next line),
- you can have sata and other "exotic" hw support with third party drivers on a floppy disk, and nothing else (just think of people like myself who doesn't even buy or have fdd for about 6 years now), which leads to
- you can't use, mount, read,
- you have only two choices for partition format, fatxx or ntfs; besides the goal for monopoly, how can one explain the lack of native support for other, high quality journaling filesystems
- no support for defining separate partitions for swap or user homes (that is Documents and Settings) - I know you can make these steps after a finished install, but why not during install ?
- network will be about the last things activated during the install process and still no use since you don't have no other terminals or guis or anything, you can't do anything but wait
- the installer gives you about 0 amount of information about the status of the install, in a lucky case you can see some filenames of dlls being copied, other than that nothing but some crappy images and blinking pixels
Don't get me wrong (I suppose you already did), I'm not saying the way the installer works is bad for the average user, I'm saying you have no other option, which is bad. Sometimes very bad.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
You obviously don't support Windows systems for laymen.
In every instance that I've replaced someone's Windows-only system with a dual-boot Windows/Linux install, they've thanked me.
I didn't install Linux to computer illiterate family members but I did install Windows XP without any problems and they have no viruses, spyware, scumware, whatnot, to this day.
I usually have a "nazi" checklist like this:
- I am admin on the machine. No one else is. Yes it's a very severe limitation but it's worth gold. Before switching to these "nazi" rules, every month or two I had to clean up myriads of spywares and viruses. For the last 2 years, not one single virus, adware or spyware.
- Only root has execute rights on iexplore.exe.
- Firefox is default browser (thank $DEITY$ my mom's and sisters' banking sites support it well).
- Thunderbird is default mail client.
- OO.org installed (so far no complaints!)
- Autoplay disabled.
- SSH installed.
- Router used as firewall.
There are limitations like installing software, but I can connect remote to the machine and do maintenance and/or installs if needed. There was no antivirus nor antispyware installed, and for shits and giggles I did install one of each and no scumware was found on the machines.
And referring to BSODs, I yet have to see Windows BSOD on about 7+ PCs in my family that wasn't related to some goddamn piece of shit ATI video driver. The only other BSOD I had on one of our PCs was because of a bad memory stick.