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HardOCP Spends 30 Days With Vista
boyko.at.netqos writes "Hardocp.com has published "30 days with Vista" — with the same author from "30 days with Linux" doing the evaluation. And he doesn't like it. From the article: 'Based on my personal experiences with Vista over a 30 day period, I found it to be a dangerously unstable operating system, which has caused me to lose data [...] Any consideration of the fine details comes in second to that one inescapable conclusion. This is an unstable operating system.'"
See my sig.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, I've only been using Vista for about a week, but I haven't encountered any of the problems he complains about.
However, before I installed my Vista upgrade, I first wiped my laptop and decided, at the urging of a friend, to try Ubuntu 6.10. Oooooo, I thought, "Edgy". Sounds cool.
So, day one, I download the distro (on my desktop), make a cd and slap it into the drive. Rubbing my hands in glee, I watch the startup window appear, tell it I want to Start or Install Ubuntu, and then watch little green letters say "Loading", while nothing happens. Reboot ad nauseum. Very odd.
Go to web. Discover that Ubuntu apparently has a hard time recognizing some hard drives. WTF? Okay, so after some searching I discover that I have to modify the boot up instructions to include "pci=nomsi" at the end. Sounds like gibberish, but what the hell. I do it, and sure enough the loading takes place with no problem.
Installation goes smoothly. Update goes smoothly. I'm good to rock and roll. I plug in my ethernet cable and internet is up and running instantly. Awesome. Windows was never that easy. I play around a little. Hmmm, system doesn't recognize my wireless card or printer. Okay, fix wireless first.
Search internet. Discover 11,000 competing and contradictory sets of instructions on how to get wireless working with Ubuntu. All agree that the stock driver is useless and must be blacklisted. Odd, why is it the stock driver then? I actually finally find a web page of instructions of a guy setting up wireless on exactly my model of laptop (Dell 1501). Awesome!
I follow his instructions - I type 23 (TWENTY-THREE) separate commands into the terminal, rebooting twice along the way. Apparently good news, as the wifi light comes on, indicating the computer actually notices the card. No internet though. Lots of searching/learning about iwconfig, ifconfig, lshw, and a bunch of other commands. I screw around at the command line, following numerous instructions found on credible websites. Nada. After 4 hours, I'm out of free time, but I do notice that somehow by trying to fix wireless, I've fucked up my regular wired connection. No internet at all now (good thing about that desktop!).
Next morning, determined to succeed, I wipe the computer and start over with a fresh install, since I have no idea where I screwed up the network. Besides, now I'm more comfortable with Linux. Again I enter the several dozen command line codes, none of which I remotely understand (why tar -xvzf ndiswrapper? WTF is -xvzf?). Result? Another 3 hours and no working wireless.
Wipe drive, install Vista. 30 mins later, computer and all its devices and peripherals are humming along and I'm comfortably surfing and installing software on my couch in front of the TV.
Now tell me, which experience sounds most attractive to the average computer user? Linux's famed "stability" is useless as long as I can't do something as simple as install (ooops, HD not recognized) or get a critical piece of kit working (wireless is kind of important guys) without spending 7+ hours entering command line prompts and searching for info.
Oh, and I never even bothered trying to install that printer. Call me when you have a product that works out of the box.
Life needs more saving throws.