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How One Small Business Switched to Ubuntu
firenurse writes to point out a story in The Inquirer about how one small business switched to Ubuntu. It describes a maddening comedy of errors, a series of circular screw-ups among Microsoft, HP, and a RAID vendor. From the article: "You never quite wrap your head around how anti-consumer Microsoft's policies are until they bite you in the bum. Add in the customer antagonistic policies of its patsies, HP in this case, and vendors like Promise, and you have quite a recipe for pain. Guess what I did today?"
I imagine going the Linux route as a smaller business or individual is going to help a lot -- you have tons of free forums and enthusiasts to help you. In working at companies that used MS heavily, I can see a pattern--the bigger you are, the better service you get. For example, a huge computer chips manufacturer I worked at had several of their employees *on site* at Microsoft. A university I worked at - paying about $250,000/year for a site-wide software license - got less help, but still had inside contacts at Microsoft. And then you've got small/new businesses who may get an email a couple weeks later, if they're lucky.
Is that a secret code that gets you modded up on Slashdot?
Let me preface this by saying I ran almost every testing final release of Fedora. A couple of days ago I was trying to get Slash running on Core 6. A friend of mine said I should really try Ubuntu. We were on IRC, so i couldn't actually hear the tone of his voice, but it seemed to me be a pretty strong emphasis. Like "Try Ubuntu you idiot." :).. Well I did. I went and grabbed the 6.0.6 Dapper Server release. The install was painless. Once I was running there were several things I needed in order build stuff. Namely, build-essential, and things like that. Also Cpan was lets just say, interesting to get right, but it always is.
So anyway. It took 3 minutes to get an apache 3.x series server with mod_perl up. Mysql was a breeze. Once the server was up, I decided to build scoop, just to get better. This is the first thing I had ever tried to build as far as a fairly powerful weblog product. The result? It works! If you doubt me, just click on my url. Now, i was just building scoop to learn. Not really gonna use it I don't think.
The point is, Ubuntu rocks, and the longer term support from 6.0.6 is what I need if im gonna be doing some development. And the kernel aint half bad either. :P
That would have been disappointing even if you got it working.
I get paid by the hour, if you need me.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Big name vendor + non-supported hardware. Any system consultant with a few years of experience should be able to tell you "don't do that".
Actually the guy in the article didn't know what he was doing and tries to blame Microsoft and HP for the mess that his lack of knowledge created.
If he had done this for even once in the past, he would have known what would happen. Very nice of him to practice with his clients' systems.
I joined two users too late.
The difference here is that you were having LEGITIMATE TECHNICAL ISSUES, as opposed to issues created by pencil pushers. Every problem the guy ran into was caused by either a total lack of thought on the manufacturers end (exe and no drivers), or intentional/malicious limiation (F6 driver install disabled, Windows Key issues).
I'm sorry your attempt with Ubuntu didn't work (I had a similar problem with old hardware and the fix was to use LILO instead of GRUB, btw).
However what's interesting is the *differences* between your problems with Ubuntu and what TFA describes as problems with proprietary vendors. With the proprietary vendors, they basically said 'either you use our configuration or screw off'... The hardware, software, and so forth were all designed to work one single way, and if you want to deviate from that, you're on your own.
Your experience with Ubuntu was just the opposite: dozens of people (apparently) gave you lots of different suggestions for what might be wrong and how to fix it. It looks like in your case it didn't work out in the end, but it is certainly interesting how much free support you received for a product you didn't pay for.
Looks like the poster had a 'real' Windows CD, but the license key he was trying to use was for the brain dead OEM version. Been there, done that. The trick is to transform a real CD into what HP (and all the other hardware vendors) should be including - a Windows install CD that works with the key on the sticker.
So look at the 'pre-installed' media, find the c:\i386\setupp.ini file that should be on the HDD. Build yourself a Windows install CD using NLite (because you should also trim th fat as long as you are going to be in there, along with adding drivers, security patches, etc) from some other source. Replace the setupp.ini file and it will use the OEM key. This won't turn an OEM version into an activation free volume version, but you can go the other way.
Did I mention nlite lets you add drivers to the install media? (grin) A must for those who have SATA drives.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
First of all, its called using the right tool for the right job. When you buy an OEM desktop you get OEM windows, you *CAN* buy the CD for an extra 10-20 bucks with most places and if you register as a reseller you can get much more. (If you're a microsoft partner you can just sell another license through your partner advantage program and use your own cd's/media for install) (free to join program). Finding Media is probably the easiest job of any techie.
Secondly, don't use Windows XP to be a server. It really isn't much more and sometimes cheaper to get a system pre-installed with SBS 2003 R2 and you get Exchange and other features built in not to mention a true comparison against Linux resource/functionality wise.
Terribly inaccurate and to say the least a very inept technician and company at work here.
My biggest selling "managed service" for small/medium sized businesses isn't my linux solution but my sbs 2003 r2 solution because for most people it not only saves money but provides tons of features from easy to configure remote access to sharing in sharepoint to cenralized ad administration/logins/access restrictions to built in exchange and with the advanced version sql server access.
I would never sell someone a desktop as a server solution simply because your selling yourself short. If cost savings was an issue buy a refurb server system and put whatever linux you want on it.
I have been bitten by every single problem mentioned in that article. Bad OEM "revogery disks" and MS licensing restrictions that prevent one from using an alternative install disks are one of the biggest single problems facing those of us that support very small businesses professionally. Say what you want about Dell... at least they include real windows install disks.
However, I have to question the judgement of the author. First of all, what kind of consultant deploys branch offices "weekly" and didn't know about these problems in advance? Anyone with much experience would know about (a) how difficult it is to move windows from one storage subsystem to another, (b) that HP uses bad recovery disks, and (c) that RAID installs require a floppy.
In addition, I question the use of Linux in this situation... perhaps it was his only way out of a bad recommendation to a client, but the problem is that there are *very* few Linux-savv consultants servicing businesses this size. For this reason alone I don't deploy Linux solutions... I can't find subcontractors who can back me up when I'm on vacation or sick, and should I stop working with a client, I don't want to leave them high and dry. Most consultants I know replace Linux servers with windows because they simply can't support it.
Finally, there's a much better way to do what he's trying to do: a NAS appliance. If all you need is some shared storage, printer sharing and the occasional backup, one of the many small business NAS devices out there (Infrant, Snap / Adaptec, Buffalo, etc...) will do so with greater reliability and less complexity than a PC-based server.
-R
Why didn't you post a link to the thread on the ubuntu forums where this whole discussion took place, as you did last time you ranted about this? Is it because you've finally realised that you acted like a complete wanker there? Here's a link.
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Not really. You've got two basic problems. The first is that grub didn't work the way it's supposed to. That's a technical problem. The second is that you weren't prepared for the first problem. That's either a failing on your part for not reading carefully, or Ubuntu for not recommending some basic precautions when doing something critical like a bootloader. I haven't read the install docs, so I can't point any fingers. The solution is fixable, either using a LiveCD or a 2K/XP boot disk.
Now if Ubuntu had automatically identified a Windows install, and intentionally excluded it from the Grub boot menu then you'd have a problem more like the ones the author experienced.
I had a same error trying to get Ubunutu running, as far as I could figure when you run the installer the IDE drive your installing to has to be the primary master drive, try install onto a slave, GRUB error 15. Try install with a SATA drive still plugged in? GRUB error 15. Try to install onto a SATA with IDE drives plugged in? GRUB error 15. As soon as the installation is completed you can switch it back.
The again with a debian installation I saw GRUB Error 15 & 18, on some old tired out machines which really did have knackered hard drives.
Microsoft may have an extremly awfull policy on windows disks but its the third party implementation which sucks not neccessarily Microsofts policy. Dell disks are like the HP ones described in the article, perhaps people should be demanding HP to make a better disk? My Medion MCE 2005 disk is a Windows MCE 2005 disk with Medion stamped on it instead of Microsoft (oh and they've modified it to load a Medion wall paper on completion) it installs the full range of XP vanilla drivers and I've seen Acer and Asus disks which act similary. Perhaps we should turn our attention to HP for creating for practical purposes a defunct windows disk rather than Microsoft for wanting the cheap copies of windows to be tied into the machine they were sold with. I don't necessarily agree with Microsofts policy but it seems that other companies don't decide to lock the disk in nearly as much and it was the lock in which made the disk useless.
The article says that you will not receive neither XP installation disk nor a valid XP Product Key. All HP hardware that I have been using have had a rescue CD set, vanilla XP installation CD (although, the CD has HP label) and a Product Key sticker glued to the machine. The Key works with the installation CD, but the activation process has to be done over the phone.
This is the situation in Finland. Does HP have different policies in other countries? I'm just curious to know if there just are different policies in different countries or is this some completely new policy that HP started using just recently?
How is it piracy to use a copy of the same version of the same OS on the same machine from a different CD? I understand that this is an antipiracy measure on Microsoft's part, but it got in the way of legitimate use here, as it not infrequently does.
God damn, stop trolling Ubuntu threads you tool!
Your claims are demonstratively false.
You were rude to everyone in the thread, and most likely had a pirated version of windows to begin with (no install CDs)
In your above steps you say that you downloaded a CD image and burnt it then a few steps later it turns out you don't have a burner. How the hell did you burn it in the first place
Here's a tip, it is very useful to know what version of windows you were running. The steps to fix the install are different if you had Windows 98 or Windows XP.
I swear every time Slashdot posts anything about Ubuntu you rock up and tell the same story. I'm sorry but the reason you didn't get any help was because you are a dick and you didn't provide anyone with any helpful information.
Ok who else doesn't believe the line: "It started out quite simply, a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week.", from the article?
I have been a consultant (my own business) working exclsuively with small bussiness for quite some time & before I ever started doign that I'd have told him he was a frickin' moron. HP doesn't support other hardware on their _restore_ CD's, well friggin' DUH! Hey moron how can you not know this if you 'a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week'. If you had you'd know this already and wouldn't have screwed with the HP disks at all & would know you need a real OS disk.
After that you blame Promise's CD... Yet lots of vendors do that... Hell lots of motherboard vendors do that! It's why I have a LS120 drive I use that is never installed in systems, but lets me get stuff loaded at that fun part of the install where I have to have a 'floppy type device' to load anything...
Really two things come to mind that sum up the solution to his whole problem: Either convince HP to customize a machine to your needs (and keep their support which you btw killed when modifying their box anyways and is the only real reason to buy from a OEM vendor anyways) or Build the darn box yourself so you can customize it as you want with a real OS CD! Problem solved.
It may be nice Linux 'solved' your problem, but your problem was caused by you for not already knowing what you were walking into.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Ok,
1) I see your point. Coming from your perspective you've been betrayed by GRUB and Ubuntu. I've had problems with GRUB in the past myself, and until recently have been a staunch supporter of LILO. Have you by chance tried picking that instead to see if it gives you better luck? Occasionally machines have firmware configurations or drive topology that GRUB still just doesn't seem to like. Its far more rare these days but still completely possible. Keep in mind you ARE using an operating system that was not pre-tested and pre-installed for the machine you're using. Unforseen complications can arise.
2) I'm only making a guess but it really *does* sound like you might have a bad harddrive. If the boot sector failed it really could have been working fine with windows for years until you tried to write something new to it, exposing the hardware failure by corrupting otherwise accessible data in the master boot record with a failed write. One way to check this would be to try re-installing windows of course, or any other distro/operating system.
3) I don't like Ubuntu either because its failed me the only two times I've tried it as well. Perhaps your machine is a "fringe case" like mine was. Issues and workarounds (or at least confirmation of non-working status) based on your motherboard's IDE/SCSI/SATA harddrive controller could exist online.
Anyway... Thats all the advice I have for you. I wish you luck.
* -Never heard of this happening. I think he means HP restore CDs
I guess you've never been a reseller as I have. You get discounts, in exchange for following certain guidelines. One of the programs I participated in required the use of a restore CD in place of actual OEM disks. That was back in the 98/Me days though, I have no idea what the requirements are now for the volume resellers.
* -That's a driver issue. No drivers, no access to weird/different hardware.
True, but not making allowances for servicing the machine is a POOR design decision that directly affects the consumer. It's not like they failed to do something here, they intentionally disabled the ability to F6 and install additional support drivers. It's been going on for YEARS, and is a decision by the manufacturers to encourage replacement rather than repair.
* - Yes, that's called a OEM key. They also have VLKs and Retail keys. Don't pirate.
Brilliant, so as a tech I should have to purchase every one of the 7+ version of XP even though I don't even need the licenses? This ENCOURAGES piracy.
* -Nothing to do with FOSS/MS. I don't think he does this once a week. If so, this is new hardware and it's new to him. Not MS's problem.
It's promises problem, and a minor one. I run into it constantly. It's an easy fix, but WHY should a few KB worth of drivers be bundled in an EXE in the first place?
At one time, my boss was as wedded to Microsoft as they come, mainly because that was all he knew. Over time, that view changed mainly because of the hoops we had to jump through as a small IT business doing things for SMBs, and the unbelievable expense for pointless things with an all Microsoft approach.
;-).
;-).
The licensing bollocks in the article of being squeezed into buying a full copy of XP, or Windows Server, not to mention the excruciating amount of time you spend wading through the treacle, is just the tip of the iceberg, and is not something I see in very many TCO studies
The final straw was Terminal Services, which to this day, is the one thing that pisses me off just about the most with Windows and Windows Servers. You actually need to run a separate service, or even a separate Windows Server, just to track Client Access Licenses (which you pay for) so that users can get access to all their applications. Anything that goes wrong with TS is nearly always licensing related, and has nothing to do whatever with the software itself. The sole reason why this is as difficult as it is is because remote applications like this seriously threatens Microsoft's reliance and monopoly over fat clients, so they got in quick and closed what they saw as a loophole. Their approach is to then make the thin client approach just as expensive and more difficult. Well, f*** off. We wanted to spend our money on things that were going to make things better and actually get us ahead of the loser competition.
I know SBS is held up as this great white hope for IT in small businesses, but I find the whole thing so limiting that we can very rarely give a 'Yes' answer to a client without asking for several thousands of whatever currency you wish before we even start and disappearing for several weeks. I mention these problems we have had calmly to many Microsoft resellers and 'Gold Partner' IT companies and they get very visibly upset, because they just don't know what to say.
As a business, we then went off into a fantastic world of an Ubuntu server running separate VMware or Xen Virtual Machines, remote desktop applications using Nomachine's fantastic NX Server, and with no ridiculous CAL overhead where we could ditch Windows applications, SQL Ledger, Zimbra, Fedora Directory Server and many others. The whole set up we have internally does so much more than a Windows and Microsoft set up does, it just isn't believable.
No doubt I'll get some extremely witty and informative reply to this comment about how someone managed to bork their Grub and Ubuntu installation into not booting. Oh, I see we've already had one
1. Microsoft has had this policy in the past, at least for consumer systems. I think they might have dropped it but I know it existed. Even if they didn't- many manufacturers (by their own choice) provide a quick restore CD with few options. He has a valid point that the CD was possibly poorly built, however if it was this way that suggests he was trying to install a server on a desktop/workstation box rather on a box designed as a server. HP makes the (often correct but quite inflexible) assumption that people who buy a desktop won't use it as a server, and plan accordingly.
As for Promise, i dunno, i generally use 3ware/AMCC stuff myself. It's a bit pricier but all the controllers I've gotten from them have at least some dead-tree documentation, a CD (which DOES have a driver) and the windows install floppy.
I keep a USB floppy drive around for this purpose- when installing Windoze on odd hardware, often you NEED a floppy to give it the driver. And most BIOSes or win setup will figure out that a usb floppy drive is drive A: when there is no other floppy.
You're right about the OEM key but that doesn't stop it from being a royal PITA. I carry a windows OEM install cd around with me for exactly this purpose. Remember, piracy is when you steal something that isn't yours. One shouldn't have to do pirate-like cracking to get ones own software to work the way one wants it to.
So to sum it up, yes there are solutions to all this guy's problems and maybe if he was more experienced he coulda found them all. I could probably have made it work given a few hours.
**BUT**
the fact remains that many of these problems (crappy restore CDs, driver disks without drivers, OEM keys) exist because of poor choices by HP, MS and Promise. They all made the (incorrect) assumption that the system would be used only as shipped, in only that configuration, nothing more; and because of that assumption made it difficult or impossible for the user/customer to do so without extra expense.
(the important bit)
AS A RESULT, the customer decided that his life was being made unnecessarily difficult and went with a competing product (Ubuntu Linux) that solved his problems more easily.
To say that again- the customer decided that his problems, however fixable, were a waste of his time and he decided to use a competing product that had fewer problems. That is the essence of a free market, you know the whole build a better mouse trap bit?
If I had hired this guy I would pat him on the back and pay him- he decided that banging his head on the problem was counter-productive and he installed something else that he knew would work and I save money and time, because my solution is deployed faster and I don't have to pay for his time trying to make something work. As long as it doesn't miss some capability I will need later, I would be thrilled.
--IronHelix
All the blame here lies on one company, HP. They didn't ship them a Windows CD which would have fixed it right up. But any good computer tech would have had a Windows XP Pro OEM CD that they could have used to install the OS (Microsoft sends an entire album of current OEM CDs to partners). Sure you would have to call up to activate the OS, but it would have gotten him up and running.
Yes, it does.
This sounds familiar. I remember a post like this before and I checked the actual mailing lists and I remember you being a complete asshole as people tried to help you. You kept hurtling insults at people who were trying their best to help you and eventually they gave up figuring that you were merely trolling them and didn't really have a problem.
evil is as evil does
This guy is a well known troll. Look at the ubuntu forums (other people have provided links) and see what an asshole this guy was to the people trying to help him.
Chances are the guy didn't really have a problem and he is just trolling either for fun or profit.
evil is as evil does
FYI, the Error 15 (File Not Found) is probably caused because GRUB (when running from inside Linux) has no way to work out which drive will be presented as 'drive 0' when GRUB is run during the boot process. The only real fix for this is to switch to an architecture with a decent pre-boot environment like Sparc, PowerPC, etc. The work-around is to correct the contents of /boot/grub/device.map and /boot/grub/menu.lst and then re-install GRUB.
Anyone who confuses "support" with proprietary software is not working in their client's best interests. Proprietors drop software maintenance to get users on the upgrade treadmill. Proprietors ostensibly act motivated by profit, but users can find computers that do their job well after the hardware is no longer profitable. Consultants ought to promote the use of free software drivers and firmware (or, preferably, no firmware needed at all) so that their clients can leverage the talents of a free market of developers to improve and maintain the software needed to make all hardware work with any system. Separating users from their freedom is not fiscally sound for users.
Digital Citizen
One thing: its patsies, HP In this case, HP is not just being MS' patsy, they are serving their own interest. MS didn't request them cripple their customization, they crippled it themselves to encourage any upgrades to be HP supplied, not third party.
The key sentence where everything went to crap: Out came the anaemic 40GB drive from one HP, and in when the Promise controller and two WD 200GB SATA drives. In the first part, he drank the vendor kool-aid and got their customized XP install. That's a valid choice in and of itself. Then he grabbed a third-party controller card and expected the stuff HP provided to play nice with it. HP didn't want him to do that, they wanted him to buy a presumably much more expensive HP branded controller to do the same thing. HP's install CD not accomodating that is hardly a surprise, and hardly a MS decision. The different keys for retail and OEM reflect the different pricing tiers. .
If they are a particularly small business, not going with one vendor is a valid choice, but you best put it together via all-third-party parts and get a generic OEM windows disk. If you can get a no-windows discount on the HP system, and use that discount for a different license, you can go with a non-restricted install media set. You do, however, in this way accept a higher degree of risk (problem determination falls squarely on your shoulders, and your vendors may disagree with your conclusion and blame other parts..). If you run on thin margins and time is not uber-critical for systems, this may be the appropriate path
If you drink the vendor kool-aid and get their hardware and software, you've drunk the kool-aid and as a consequence, you ought buy from HP your upgrades. You can't expect something put together by them to work for hardware configurations they would explicitly not support. This is more expensive if you buy any significant number of upgrades, but that's the course you signed up for by implicitly restricting yourself to their install media. By mixing and matching, you get the negatives of above with respect to support (HP can blame the generic Promise chipped card, and vice-versa), but you pay more for the privilege of support that is compromised by the choice.
I'm a professional linux guy working for a hardware vendor. We invest a lot of time and money in making sure all our hardware works well for given linux distributions. I occasionally have to work with a customer who ultimately admits to third party options in the systems that usually end up the cause of their problem for reasons more purely technical than artificial CD key barriers. I'm a little defensive of this circumstance because even without artificial key measures introduced, this strategy can screw you over regardless of your software platform.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You haven't dealt with a lot of small business then. Quite a few applications need Windows servers, which have given me quite a few troubles in using Linux. QuickBooks and ProSeries (which I have worked around), Sage Business Works (which I haven't worked around yet, but run locally and copies on log off), some program that uses an Access backend (on a server I refuse to support because of the mistakes of the previous IT person), EagleSoft (NO workarounds), etc. I want all my servers to run Linux, unfortunately, they can't all run it, not until vendors realize that there are better options out there. And soon to be for me, I will need to run a Windows server, for QuickBooks and I guess for some dev work that I have nothing to do with. I am however hoping for a free copy from MS.
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
I don't go anywhere to do any work without the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows! As long as the system can support XP (older machines can't, so I have to use the older Boot CD which is DOS-based), I can boot XP anywhere and have numerous utilities available. In fact, my UBCDW has so many antivirus and antispyware utilities on it that I'm thinking of making a couple more CDs with different sets of utilities on it to do other things. I'd do a DVD version, but a lot of people still don't have DVD drives in their machines.
I'm going to add some utilities to several 2GB flash drives and eventually convert one of my older 60GB hard drives into an external USB inclosure and load it up with EVERYTHING - along with a boot CD to access it.
Then - bring it on! I've got over 1600 utilities that can pretty much handle any issue I'm likely to encounter (knock wood, tomorrow I'll run into one I can't...)
Gotta admit, though, the guy was screwed when there were no drivers on the Promise disk. And it is a pain that you can't use a vanilla XP install CD to replace system files in a Systems File Check (although I understand the security reasons for it) or do much of anything else except run a Restore Console.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Let me quickly relate a recent experience. I installed Slackware on this machine a little while back. It took me two days, including one day to figure out how to set up Apache with a load of modules and Twiki. Kernel compiled, Apache compiled, ready to go.
More recently I had to install Windows XP Pro from an SP1 disk. It took me two days to set up Windows XP Pro with administrator and user accounts and get all my apps updated and working properly (or close enough with some apps running escalated privileges) in user mode.
My conclusion: Both Slackware and Windows are very difficult systems to build from scratch. If people had to install Windows themselves they would be as smart as Linux geeks.
"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
Ok dude, I read through your posts at the ubuntu forums, all of it. And I agree, most the people there regurgitated the same info over and over, and even asked the same questions that you all ready did answer. BUT the answer to your problem was given, just because it wasn't the answer you wanted, doesn't mean it wasn't correct. Look, you needed some sort of bootable disk to go in and make corrections. It could have been a floppy disk or a cd, it doesn't fucking matter, anything to fix the mbr would have worked. You can go to a god damn library and download it if you have no friends or family's computer to use. You kept saying "if they make something that has the ability to lock you out they need a backup to fix it" (paraphrased) or some such. Well, Windows has similar issues; if you get a stop error, try to boot up into safe mode and still receive the stop error, what do you do? OMFG you get a Windows disc to boot off of!!!! WHO KNEW!!??? Also, you were an extreme dick on the forums, sure, the help wasn't top notch, but neither was your, emo angst filled, responses.
Yep. Right up to the point where the "small businessman" has to face the realities of dealing with Microsoft's current licensing policy.
The problems described in the original article are, mostly, caused by Microsoft's attempts to artificially segment a market so that Microsoft can extract the most revenue from those segments.
Which is why the Ubuntu installation went so easily. It wasn't designed to segment the market. It doesn't matter who is installing it or on what hardware (as long as it's recognized) or what version and there is no unlocking code.
So, yes, being blunt about Microsoft's practices does make you sound like "an adolescent nincompoop" to anyone who is not aware of the facts. To anyone who does understand (and has experienced them first hand), it is nothing more than bluntness.
Your computer is not "bricked" anymore than a car with a flat tire is bricked. You can either recover your windows MBR with a windows install disk, hell, borrow one, Or you can fix the grub install with a live CD/Flash drive. You are just being stubborn about this, no one listens to you because you have it set in your head that Linux is bad, and you need to tell everyone how bad it is.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
Does your incredibly snide and degrading tone get you far in life? Because it doesn't work on the internet. Maybe you think you're being witty or something but you just come across as an angry jerk.
in a decade of using linux I've never come across a more helpful and patient community than Ubuntu. If you ask questions politely and provide the information that's requested, instead of acting like you are smarter than everyone else and you don't think their question is relevant, you might find you get a little bit more useful information. Just a tip.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Microsoft kept the money for that copy of XP, but this guy isn't gonna buy MS or HP for his next computer, or the one after that.
Let me get this straight, just so I know I'm not reading this wrong:
Customer asked for:
A new branch office (presumably they have others) with a handful of Windows workstations and a Windows file server
Contract IT guy gave them:
Some Windows workstations and a Linux file server because he couldn't get Windows working
Customer's head office presumably said:
"You're fired. We'll get someone who *can* give us what we asked for. If we want to use Linux will ask for it."
I was helping a friend get set up with a new computer. It's a sweet, sweet box from HP: Athlon 4200+ X2 processor, 1GB RAM, DVD burner. It's an HP Pavilion a1647c-b, and it cost US$900 (which included a nice widescreen LCD display with both analog and DVI inputs!). I upgraded it with a passively-cooled nVidia 7600GS graphics card, so it's now using the DVI input on the LCD display, and the display looks great.
I wanted to install Ubuntu on it, but I haven't done so yet. Here's why.
It turns out that the system doesn't come with an XP install CD. No surprise, Microsoft requires OEMs to provide "recovery disks". But it turns out that the system doesn't come with recovery disks either! It comes with a utility for burning a custom set of recovery disks. The manual says you are permitted to burn exactly one set of recovery disks.
It turns out that you need 18 blank CD-R disks, or 3 blank DVD+/-R disks, to burn your custom set of recovery disks! So I went home without installing Ubuntu.
The next day he bought a stack of DVD+R disks, and I went back. The recovery disk utility took a long time to burn the first disk, and then it said "verifying" and sat there, indicating 1% progress. So I left again without installing Ubuntu. He left it running and it never did finish.
So now he has a Windows system that he doesn't dare use, because if it gets messed up, there is no way to restore it. He told me he would call HP tech support but I haven't heard back from him.
By the way: it would have been easy to install Ubuntu before the first boot-up. I booted an Ubuntu CD and used it as a live CD, and looked over the hard disk without modifying it. Initially there was a 20GB partition and a whole bunch of empty space. On the first boot, the Windows system expanded the NTFS file system to fill the whole bunch of empty space. If I had just created a couple of partitions at the end of the empty space, I'm pretty sure that Windows would have left them alone, and then it would have been trivial to install Ubuntu. (Of course, if I had done that, I would have had a nagging worry that the recovery disk fiasco was somehow my fault. Because I didn't touch the machine before first boot, it's clear that the recovery meltdown has nothing to do with me.)
I was tempted to just grab a copy of XP and do a full re-install. But this particular system came with XP Media Center Edition, and I have no idea where I can get an install CD of XP MCE (or how much it would cost).
I'm half-tempted to buy one of these systems, though, because it was a good value for the money, and Ubuntu recognized all the hardware, right down to the flash card reader.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Sound is always an issue, not so much because of Linux, but because if you're not expert in Linux, you can't tell WHICH of the three or four sound servers Linux provides is running as the default, and WHICH of them is being used by the media program you're running. Look at the system setup or the dmesg boot report and the config screens for Xine or whatever media program you're running. Usually, adjusting the programs to use the right sound server solves the problem.
It's dumb, I know - why they don't marry ALL the apps with the system services they're running on install is beyond me.
The NIC should be easier. It's just not always detected correctly. Find out what the NIC is from your motherboard manual (if it's onboard as most are these days), do a Google to see what kernel module is needed for it (which is probably quicker than plowing through whatever HOWTO the distro included), and then enable that module.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Unless he somehow wrangled a refund out of HP for the copy of XP he didn't use, then Microsoft still got paid, thus their "braindead policy" isn't costing them a nickel. They're just making money on a copy of Windows they don't need to support.
Two problems with this, the first is that even if they were to get a refund it is HP that would pay for it not MS I'd imagine as I wouldn't be supprised if OEMs that have volume discounts for Windows has to pay for each PC sold. The second issue is once a client finds another supplier it's difficult to bring them back. So while MS still got paid for Windows, they lost future sales.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I've been working on Windows boxes for quite a while, both in my own company, as a tech for a larger company, and now a network administrator. The problem this guy ran into was actually quite simple. There are several versions of Windows XP (OEM, VL, Retail, AP, etc). You can't use one disk with another, period. No big deal, tons of ways to get your hands on the various version discs.
I question what the heck this guy is doing and thinking. If he has the ability to set up an Ubuntu box, heck if he even knows how to set up a basic RAID 1 array, I'm baffled as to why he doesn't know the answer to his own question. Anyone who reads this article who themselves is tech saavy knows this guy is a bit of a dolt. How on earth he got his story published on anything other than his blog is beyond me.
And in response to a lot of peoples' jargon about an XP Pro box not being able to make a good server - why not?? I've worked as an independent contractor for small business IT needs for half a dozen years, and there's no reason why a simple XP pro box can't make a decent, cost effective server. Albiet, it all boils down to the clients' needs, but for a typical small business (and by small business I mean less than 30 employees), like the one mentioned here, all they typically need is something decent that will host files where their files are reasonable safe. An XP pro box set up properly can make for an appropriate server. RAID 1, backup scripts (or 3rd party programs), a UPS, a couple network shares is what half of the world runs on. Remember, 80% of business in North America is small business (sub 30 people).
All of this doesn't change the fact that quite clearly this guy doesn't know what he's doing. 2 minutes on google would have answered his question.
My last debian install failed to configure grub, installing it to the MBR but nothing more. I made the lazy mistake of installing the final release using an older testing release of the netinstall cd I had downloaded earlier, and there was a change in where it put grub-install. So the system wouldn't boot after the debian install was complete. My solution was to figure out how to boot using the grub command line, which basically involved typing in exactly what ought to have been in the config file. After I booted I was able to configure it properly, typing in the same thing again. But I had the luck of having a second system with a working grub config for reference. I was also surprised that grub had an auto-complete feature, so I didn't have to guess the kernel and initrd paths. And there was inline help. And I had two other systems at my desk I could use to search online. It wasn't fun (apart from being educational), but it wasn't a brick either.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
If you act in an unpleasant manner you can expect to be ignored. People who may be able to help you are unlikely to do so. I've read your comments on the ubuntu forum (twice in fact) and I really think you behaved in a very poor way.
I've added you as a foe. I consider someone who behaves that way is unlikely to have anything to say that I would like to read.
meh
There is no such thing as an "onboard RAID controller". They all use software RAID with a binary-only, and usually Windows-only, driver. In most cases, Linux's own "md" software RAID is faster and performs better than whatever binary driver they provide (and you get the Source Code; which for something as fundamental and important as a disk controller, should be the Law anyway.)
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
It's been my experience that people such as you described tend to end up in management.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!