But isn't that a completely different market? Home servers are intended for domestic unskilled users, so do need a hand holding user friendly set-up. The idea of a home server is pretty new outside serious geek households, so the Microsoft version is designed as a plug and play system for those who already have a network, and want to add a server as easily as they would a router. And use it for a very reduced subset of tasks.
Business servers, which unless I misread the article, are the market that Canonical are looking at. A completely different market where Linux is already taken very seriously.
A server is not a desktop. They are different systems designed for different tasks, and while better instruction on a domestic desktop is desirable, if the system admin is a newbie, they should not be doing the job in the first place. And if a user is maintaining the servers, they may as well not exist.
As for this "choice" thing you're talking about. That's the function of the market isn't it? Wouldn't just proprietary software give people "choice"? Not as easily as free software. Its possible, but free software lowers the bar on both sides. I don't risk paying for something that is not right for my needs, and the maker doesn't risk money on something that could be a flop. And as the market is not a level playing field by any stretch, how likely would a for profit commercial app be to take on Microsoft in the office suite market or Adobe in the graphics market and sell enough to survive?
Maybe I'm misreading something, but you seem to be implying that computer retailers (e.g. Dell, HP, Acer) manufacturer their own hardware. Those companies pretty much just assemble components produced by other companies. Sure, you can complain to Dell that they should use Intel wireless chipsets in all of their laptops, but it isn't really Dell's fault that Broadcom is being a bunch of jackasses. And how long would Broadcom hold out if Dell announced that "As of the start of the coming financial year, Dell will only buy in hardware with multi platform support". Broadcom and many others would very quickly discover a talent for writing Linux and BSD drivers, or develop a line of components which have a compatibility layer built in to allow other OSs to work with them. Dell and the other major OEMs just have not had a reason to do this yet. It isn't much more effort to support XP and Vista than it is to support XP Vista and Linux, or use a common protocol that the card can listen for to communicate with the OS in a standard way.
Because you seem to underestimate the ease and speed of installing a copy of Windows. And given the size of hard drives these days, the kind of times you are talking about would be for pre partitioned pre formatted drives. I wasn't intending to be insulting, just setting the record straight.
How hard would it be for developers to make several different packages of each release? I think that's the real issue here. But they don't have to. Making packages for specific distros is only really required for RPM or DEB files, which may be the best way, but are not the only way. Firefox and Thunderbird being very well known examples of a method of installing Linux Apps painlessly.
1) Download the tarball. 2) Unpack the tarball to your chosen directory. 3) Run your app. 4)???? 5)profit.
They don't get linked into the automated update check that a distro specific app would from a repository would, but both these apps update themselves. Other app makers will do various things differently, but it is distro agnostic, and doesn't require hunting all over the place for dependencies when you try to compile from source. And in the case of games, they can be closed source if required, so keep the publisher happy.
That's bull, it's a long and easy process. It takes 30-60 minutes, but it's smooth as butter apart from that. Odds are, you're going to have most of your drivers on the OS disc, if not all, and the few you do have are easy to replace, unless you're missing a network driver. Windows Update is usually decent at picking up those last couple of drivers that weren't on the disc. When was the last time you did a full install from scratch, as the previous poster specified? Not a vendor supplied special build, but a real from scratch install on a non formatted hard drive with a real copy of Windows. And the Windows update drivers are not the same as the real thing. They are at best in my experience, cut down versions. Vista may have drivers for some newish hardware, but in a few years, that will also be obsolete as newer hardware comes along to replace it.
A few weeks ago I upgraded my PVR.
Asus a8v motherboard, 1 gig RAM, known to be compatible, Pioneer DVDRW, Nvidia 5200 video card. 500Gig SATA hard drive(the only never used component) So nothing too exotic there.
Just to see if the SATA drive was supported, and to verify I had set the right options to make it boot from SATA, I popped a Fedora Core 6 DVD in. The whole process was done in less than an hour. Blank drive to working desktop. Formatting the hard drive took minutes. I wish I had timed the process. As it was a quick install, I just went with all the defaults. It verified that I had a working set up for my SATA drive, as this was the first one of this interface I had installed. I did have to boot to DOS and use fdisk to remove the Linux partitions, as Windows wouldn't recognise them, and refused to even remove them. Unlike Linux, which can recognise, resize and make a default set of partitions out of the box.
For Windows XP home SP2 OEM.. to the same hardware set up stage on the exact same hardware.
Make SATA driver disk. Install Windows. Install drivers for chipset. Install drivers for built in network card. Install drivers for sound card. Install video card drivers so I could get beyond 800 by 600. Set up network access. Install firewall. Install virus scanner.
Partition the rest of the drive and format it....
Several HOURS later.. I was done with this stage. Formatting a big NTFS partition is sloooooooow! I didn't include the updates or configuring extra software and hardware, as this was skipped with the Linux install. I did however have to swap out the USB keyboard and mouse that Linux recognised no problem, but needed drivers for Windows.
This got me to the same point as a freshly installed and untweaked copy of Fedora 6.
Windows from a rescue disk is a doddle I'll agree, but Windows from scratch is not as easy and most definitely not as fast, as installing most if not all versions of Linux. Plus, Linux gives way more software out of the box than Windows ever has. Codecs and media players and getting DVD playing set up are trivial once you know which packages to download. And with Codec buddy, which is already in Ubuntu, and I just found out will be in Fedora 8, makes the process stupidly simple. Even your grandmother's grandmother could do it. And the only thing you need to reboot for is the kernel update which is part of the video card driver installation.
In the time I took to set up Windows, I could have a Linux box installed, fully configured for web access and multimedia, downloaded a few games and apps, restored all my backups, set up Amarok to manage my music collection, installed and tweaked Beryl to the way I like it, and be reading slashdot. And I'm still a noob!
I think with all the paid for reviews kicking about, there is a perceived need to put something negative in any article. Would you believe a review that had nothing negative to say about a product?
I agree. Downloading applications and codecs is not a big deal. Windows doesn't come with all codecs installed by default, And I would imagine OSX is the same. and every OS needs more apps to make it truly useful. Even Windows and OSX users need to figure stuff out. And anybody who thinks differently is already using their chosen OS long enough to have forgotten the "How do I do this" phase that we all go through. Computers are only intuitive if you have quite a bit of experience and are using a system that behaves in much the same way as your old one. take away a Windows user's right mouse button and they will have to adjust to a new way of doing something that is default behaviour in Windows.
For someone who has only used Windows, they have to get used to a new concept. The Repository. Instead of going to a multitude of sites, they need to change their habits to search a database of applications and other goodies to install the desired program in the easiest way possible, and in the case of Fedora, find out about the Livna and other third party repositories, and then find out how to get them working with their distro.
Its not hard, just different.
The second string to this problem is that there is no list of equivalent apps to the Windows programs that they are likely to have been used to using. This is a problem for anybody switching OS, so not a uniquely Linux speed bump. If I want a DVD burning app, where do I go to find out what is available and in the repositories for my distro? The forum regulars get so sick of the same old "I wanna burn a CD", "I wanna go to a chat room", etc. which has been answered a hundred times already and would be easy enough to search for.. Except the new user has perhaps only skimmed forums before, and is asking questions for the first time. And that assuming they know about the forums.
I'd like to see a short "welcome to the Linux world" tour. Sort of like the Windows welcome thingy that shows the new user the basic controls and concepts, and gives a quick tutorial on all the little bits that are known hiccups for new Linux users. Like why there are no codecs for popular media types installed by default, how to post a question on the forums politely etc. Nothing in depth.
It might not be a good idea to assume an existing broadband connection, So it would need to be a compact format. Perhaps an Open Office (or whatever similar app is installed) presentation to save space on the install disk instead of a video file or a streamed video. A dry web page with a long index and no screen shots or graphics is fine for existing users who know what they are after, but its just a big block of intimidating text to the noobs. It doesn't even need to be created by the distro maker. The community could do something and allow it to be included with the distro, and update it as required for each new version.
I agree that 'running' the OS is doable, and nowadays, even running the more common applications (to browse, to mail, to type a letter,..) is no problem anymore. BTW, I know the whole discussion about 'it's the developers fault (or the creators of the drivers) that games can't play etc....but the fact remains it's far more difficult on Linux. And I also agree that some of it is due to not being familiar with the OS. *But* I think it's also objectively more difficult (still).
Games are written by third party developers. Linux has no technological deficit that would make it difficult to write games on that platform. There are quite a few that do run on Linux, so its just a matter of marketing. Nobody can reliably say how many Linux users are out there, or how many gamers are dual booting just to play games.
Let me give you a real example that I encountered myself. When I first installed one of the earlier versions of Mandrake Linux (one of the first times I tried linux), I was quite surprised how well it installed (compared to another time I tried to install a corel linux version which totally borked my computer). All hardware was recognized, and I didn't have any problems with my sound or anything. On itself, that could be considered 'ready'.
But...then I wanted to install the operabrowser on it. Now, I had done the same with my windows box (win2000) and there I went to the site, downloadsection, clicked on the exe, and it installed itself, and I could use it. Total time: a few minutes.
And I'll counter with a real life example too. Firefox 2 isn't in the Fedora 6 repositories. It is in the experimental ones, but I never had much success there. So all I do is download the archive, use the archive manager built into the file manager, and run the executable. It then automatically finds all my plugins and codecs, and sets everything up for me. Thunderbird is no different. Download, unpack and run. Firefox and Thunderbird find the settings because the directories they store the information in are in my home directory. I have reinstalled Linux several times, but only had to set up my email accounts once, because all the settings including my filtering rules are in these easily backed up directories.
For stuff in the repositories, its even easier. The system checks for libraries and dependencies, and gathers everything I need to install. then it downloads, installs and puts the shortcuts in the relevant places. Obviously this falls down if there is something that I want which isn't in the repositories, but nothing is perfect.
For everything else, there are source downloads. Although I freely admit I have only ever got one thing to compile from source, and that was a Gimp plugin.
So where Microsoft has one method, Linux has at least three. Repos, binary distributions, and source. Its up to the developers which they choose to use, and only one is distro specific.
Now, granted, things would have been much faster if I had been familiar with the OS, but still...why didn't it came with the KDE-browser perfectly working, out of the box? why are there a whole plethora of different versions who are incompatible with eachother? why can't I just 'click and install and run' as in windows? Why do I get interdependencies and why do I have to search for libraries?
Partly because you are talking about an old version. I have both Gnome and KDE on my Linux box, and apps from one work inside the other no problem. installing was just a matter of making a choice at start up, or installing the packages later through either Yum or Add/remove Software. Including the ability to swap between either. Not knowing the system is not really a fair criticism.
Even if I knew the OS well, it still points to a less user-friendly concept then windows is. And it's all good and well I'm a tinkerer myself and wanted to try out Linux. But, really, imagine Joe Doe - who even has no idea what the command line of windows is about - using Lin
Sorry to sound like the one with the ego problem, but in a statement of fact, I know I could do your job if I were to take the time to learn the state of the industry - but since the average 'IT guy' can't design reactors and doesn't own a business besides the occasional side job removing viruses and reinstalling Windows for coworkers, I do that instead. So basically.. you are the cook.
While I don't want to pick sides here (I don't know the guy - he can well have been obnoxious, as you say) what you said DOES in fact point more towards the 'linux isn't ready for the desktop yet' then the opposite. The fact that you expect somebody to have a windows OS ready in case the Ubuntu one screws up inherently implies it's not up to par. I doubt people from MS would advice to have an ubuntu OS ready in case installing their OS fails. A live CD is actually very useful for verifying that there isn't a hardware fault stopping Windows working, and vital for emergency backups when Windows dies, so perhaps they should bring out a live CD. Until then, I have my Knoppix disk for emergencies.
Why exactly was Windows needed? The most expedient solution perhaps, but Windows was only being suggested as a means of downloading the tools to fix the install, not as the tool that would fix the install.
Ready for the desktop is a very subjective statement. Your definition is possibly different to mine. Linux has all the parts required to run as a desktop OS on adequately supported hardware. I'm using it as my main desktop OS right now, so if it isn't ready, what is missing?
My ex used to teach a very basic computer literacy class. One of her students, when asked to move the cursor with the mouse, picked up the mouse and tried to push the cursor across the screen with it. Does this render Windows not ready for the desktop because it doesn't always have a touch screen interface? Counter intuitive or what!! Each of us has learned a large amount of techniques to achieve our goal. A different OS may use a different approach.
I agree Linux isn't ready to be installed on any random collection of hardware by someone who doesn't know what they are doing, any more than Windows is. Linux can however be easier than Windows to install provided it can identify all the hardware it needs to.
I myself had troubles installing Ubuntu too (though, it was the former version, not the latest one). On the other hand, I never had trouble with a win version, as yet (even though my first one was win95). That said, I never had trouble with installing Mandrake Linux (as it was called, back then), so I'm not claiming Linux is impossible to install. Nothing unusual there. Linux doesn't have as much support from hardware makers, so it is more hit and miss on equipment not bought specifically for it. The same is true of Vista, so its not exactly unique.
But it must be said it's more difficult to use then windows. not for the Linux-expert, of course. And strangely enough, also not for the grandmother who just wants to surf and email a bit (linux has improved enough for that)...no, it's what I would call the 'power-users' who *aren't linux-experts who can't really do much with it.They want MORE than just surfing or the normal application-stuff; they want to install and try out a whole plethora of new, sometimes rather obscure programs and applications - and it's a pain in the ass if you want to run them on linux - if it's possible at all. You have a good point. Switching to any OS after having experience with something else is difficult. The more familiar the harder it is. The same Windows user would most likely have problems getting into OSX. As would a long time Linux user switching to Windows.
Linux has been the preserve of tinkerers and geeks for a long time. But now it is getting more mainstream. So things are getting easier. Companies are using Linux, and they demand more polished software than someone who puts performance over all else. Linux has always been fine for it's target market. Now the target is changing, so is Linux.
That a problem occured is not at issue. How you prepaired for the potential problems that could arise from doing something as potentially risky as installing a new Operating system is entirely your responsibility, and is not an excuse to be rude to people who were trying to help you.
As no doubt has been said many times before, you went on a user group. Asked for help, became agressive and had an overall bad experinece. Not exactly a big surprise. If you went up to a random member of the public in the street, grabbed him by the shirt and shouted in his face "I was burgled two years ago and you did nothing to help" you would not like the resulting actions of that person.
You tried to dual boot with what appears to be little or no knowlege of the risks, and you got burned. It happens. It has happened to me, and no doubt it will happen to others. The difference is that most people are able to calmly find help, or have enough sense to keep the disks needed to restore the computer to a working state BEFORE we start messing with things we don't understand enough to make an informed choice. I know vaguely how a car engine works, but I wouldn't be daft enough to think that equipped me with the knowledge to strip down the engine of a formula one car during a pit stop.
You on the other hand, armed only with the install disks of an operating system that is known to be pretty unforgiving of mistakes and having patchy hardware support, and no backup plan, decided to attempt this task on a computer with three hard drives. Something went wrong.. It happens. Get over it.
I'm still at a loss as to what your continued retelling of your story is intended to do.
Each time, you post about an incident that happened several years ago, which anybody reading the thread would see as a case of you being obnoxious and the Ubuntu people being exceptionally helpful. Each time you get called various things that most people don't really want to be called, and yet you still insist on recounting your experience. Why?
Because freedom has to be incomplete. Total freedom as a concept does not work. If I have the freedom to be alive, and I have the freedom to be dead, then how can I have the freedom to be both at the same time? And if I had the freedom to be in more than one state, It would conflict with the freedom to be in only one state.
Mixing reality and semantics is counter productive.
It seems there are some problems with cool'n' quiet and some hardware. My Nebula TV tuner card was getting random glitches when watching live TV or recording. I have a 939 Athlon single core and an Asus A8V board in my PVR, and it worked fine when I turned that feature off in the bios. Try removing the TV card and seeing if the problem persists.
On my Linux box, it seems to work fine. The boot up for Fedora 6 complained quite a bit when I didn't have it enabled, and it throttles the CPU speed quite nicely too. I'm running at 21-25degrees C with the stock cooler while idling, and going up to about 35-40 under load. Could be the AM2 CPU or perhaps it is more compatible with the hardware in the Linux box.
But then he would have to give up his rant that he has been rehashing at every possible oppertunity ever since!
The problem from what I saw on the thread wasn't with Ubuntu, but someone who didn't have the knowledge and the wit to follow the instructions needed. I dread to think what he would be like with a tough problem.
I remember going to the Ubuntu forum and checking out the thread of the problem you refer to. It should be set as a sticky thread to act as a how-to on the wrong way to ask for help. The whole thread can be enjoyed here. http://preview.tinyurl.com/2324sq Read the thread before being sympathetic towards UbuntuDupe.
After skimming through it again, I'm still impressed with how friendly and helpful the Ubuntu users were to such an obvious pratt. Please stick with Windows.
[1] Ubuntu flaunts its philosophy of freedom from proprietary software, and the forum told me that if I want to access my computer after Ubuntu near-bricked it, I would need my Windows CD, then accused me of pirating it when I didn't instantly know where it was. Truth:- After you rendered your computer unable to boot, and didn't see fit to download any bootable operating system, someone suggested you use the Windows boot features to get one OS up and running so you could try to diagnose what the problem was on your computer with three different hard drives. Kinda tricky fixing a problem with no operating system available. And the computer was at no time bricked. stop being a drama queen.
[2] When I explained what was wrong and what I had tried, the first, and several other posters completely ignored that and suggested things I had tried several times over. Truth:- When you vaguely mentioned some of the things you had tried, which included putting the boot loader on all three hard drives and typing something into the install options on the Ubuntu disk, you ignored any advice and ranted.
[3] An Ubuntu forum poster demanded to know what version of Windows I had installed, in order to diagnose a well-defined error with the bootloader, which happens before it has any chance to load any OS, and then claimed it would be impossible to help me unless he knew this. Truth:- They asked for any information including which version of Windows you had, and you ranted. and got surprisingly defensive.
[4] Several Ubuntu forum posters claimed that, as a logical consequence of me having burned the Ubuntu install CD, I must be able to burn new CDs they listed, forgetting that it was using the install CD in the first place that disabled my CD burner from being used! Truth:-The Ubuntu guys asked you to download another copy on a different computer and use the checksum to confirm that there had not been any errors with the download, and to use the disk verification feature to make sure that the disk had not got corrupted while burning. A common problem as it happens. And to download the bootable CD so you would have an operating system to help you figure out what the problem was. they had no way of knowing if you had the ability to burn another CD on the computer you were using to whine at them or not, but as you had access to at least one computer with a burner, you could have taken the drive from one computer and put it in the other working one easily enough.
I'm sure there are cases of people being obnoxious to someone looking for help on some forums, and there are no doubt many who will be dismissive of something they see as a trivial problem, but this was not the case here.
This is why you should NEVER use a product that requires "activation".
Just say no to mandatory registration, dongles and other similar shenanigans.
This isn't even a "pro free software" or "anti commercial" thing. Not all commercial software vendors choose to treat their customers like this. Couldn't agree more. I used to be quite happy using Microsoft stuff. Even the activation that started with XP was a bit distasteful, but not that bad. Then WGA became compulsory, and I started looking at Linux. I went from 2 XP machines to 2 XP machines and a Frankenstein Linux box made of leftovers for testing, bought a KVM switch, and found that I was spending more and more time in Linux. No viruses, no websites attempting to load various spyware programs ot me, and no interrogation when I do an update. I'm now back to 2 computers, but only one is Windows, and thats my PVR, and only because my TV card doesn't have Linux drivers,and having a Windows box around is useful for the occasional thing that I haven't figured out in Linux yet. .
Oh come on. They mistook his disabled chemical weapons for... chemical weapons. I agree that people scare stupidly easily (see: boston) but this isn't a good example. These *really did* look just like the weapons they thought they were. Correction. they mistook his lab equipment and possibly some books about chemical weapons for chemical weapons. The were paramedics, not trained weapons inspectors.
Using a tiny little bit of logic, don't you think that if someone were actually attempting to make a substance that could be weaponized, they might take precautions of not having the equipment in plain sight? Even an organisation as pathetically ineffective as Al Quieda would think of what might happen should someone see something out of the ordinary.
Whats next? A plumber gets called out to fix a flood in a basement, and sees a vaguely oriental looking customer has a lot of computer gear in the house, so thinks he has cracked a Chinese cyber warfare ring?
I wonder. A few points shaved off the good little OEM league tables would work wonders in the joint advertising fund. Although if they are actually powerless, there could be a lot of interesting things happening next January. The return rates on buggered up PCs must be quite high from what I have been hearing. Be it crapplets or design flaws, I don't think that the OEMs like Vista that much.
To be fair, that's probably the fault of the OEM you bought from loading tons of crap and free offers on top of the system. A clean install of Vista Ultimate on an Aspire 5100 (1GB RAM) works just fine for me performance wise and I like it. I'm seriously doubting your claim of a 6 minute boot time too. Something is definitely wrong if you weren't exaggerating, and it's not with Vista. Seems a bit of a thin reason to me. If the manufacturer is degrading the performance so much, then wouldn't Microsoft object? Especially if they publicised the fact. The PR gain would be pretty good.
I suspect from all the stories I have heard, including those from people I know to be experienced techies, that Vista is not currently able to support a lot of hardware properly. It could be conflicts that XP was able to ignore, or problems with addressing memory, or even the cheaper memory used by some OEMs being not up to the job. This would explain the fact that some people are finding it works perfectly, while on other computers, it is an unstable slow mess. Perhaps they can get it working with the first service pack, perhaps not.
I have a strong suspicion that come Feburary next year, you will still be able to buy XP, and many OEMs will be still offering it.
"I want a computer without Windows!! Where can I buy one...? Answer: I can't."
Sure you can...
You can certainly go with Dell... "http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs"
Or you can of course go Apple. "apple.com"
How about eBay? "http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-AMD64X-3200-COMPLETE-GAMING-COMPUTER-NR..." blah, blah -lameness filter kicked in...brand new gaming rig sold "NO OPERATING SYSTEM INCLUDED".
That's with only a minute's search. If you can't find more then you aren't looking hard enough. Maybe not as many choices as you want, but there are some. The other choice is to buy any used rig and put your choice of OS on it. Not strictly true. Good enough for a devils advocate argument, Kind of like Mc'Donalds saying that you can get a hamburger without a pickle on it, but you have to drive 20 miles out of your way and wait in line in the rain to get it, so you have a choice. The pickle being already factored into the price of the hamburger from Mc'Donalds, and no price existing on the register for the burger without a pickle.
To realistically answer the question, try walking into a random computer shop or picking a random on-line computer vendor, pick the specification you want and then decide the OS. I'll grant you the qualifier that has to be a computer that can handle running the chosen OS of choice in light of Vista's hardware requirements. Not so easy now.
Almost all the Linux pre installs are either experimental lines offered in a very limited way by a few big names right now, or small specialist builders who have been offering Linux as a part of their boutique lines for years at a price. Not quite the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
But isn't that a completely different market? Home servers are intended for domestic unskilled users, so do need a hand holding user friendly set-up. The idea of a home server is pretty new outside serious geek households, so the Microsoft version is designed as a plug and play system for those who already have a network, and want to add a server as easily as they would a router. And use it for a very reduced subset of tasks.
Business servers, which unless I misread the article, are the market that Canonical are looking at. A completely different market where Linux is already taken very seriously.
A server is not a desktop. They are different systems designed for different tasks, and while better instruction on a domestic desktop is desirable, if the system admin is a newbie, they should not be doing the job in the first place. And if a user is maintaining the servers, they may as well not exist.
Because you seem to underestimate the ease and speed of installing a copy of Windows. And given the size of hard drives these days, the kind of times you are talking about would be for pre partitioned pre formatted drives. I wasn't intending to be insulting, just setting the record straight.
1) Download the tarball.
2) Unpack the tarball to your chosen directory.
3) Run your app.
4)????
5)profit.
They don't get linked into the automated update check that a distro specific app would from a repository would, but both these apps update themselves. Other app makers will do various things differently, but it is distro agnostic, and doesn't require hunting all over the place for dependencies when you try to compile from source. And in the case of games, they can be closed source if required, so keep the publisher happy.
A few weeks ago I upgraded my PVR.
Asus a8v motherboard,
1 gig RAM, known to be compatible,
Pioneer DVDRW,
Nvidia 5200 video card.
500Gig SATA hard drive(the only never used component)
So nothing too exotic there.
Just to see if the SATA drive was supported, and to verify I had set the right options to make it boot from SATA, I popped a Fedora Core 6 DVD in. The whole process was done in less than an hour. Blank drive to working desktop.
Formatting the hard drive took minutes. I wish I had timed the process. As it was a quick install, I just went with all the defaults. It verified that I had a working set up for my SATA drive, as this was the first one of this interface I had installed.
I did have to boot to DOS and use fdisk to remove the Linux partitions, as Windows wouldn't recognise them, and refused to even remove them. Unlike Linux, which can recognise, resize and make a default set of partitions out of the box.
For Windows XP home SP2 OEM.. to the same hardware set up stage on the exact same hardware.
Make SATA driver disk.
Install Windows.
Install drivers for chipset.
Install drivers for built in network card.
Install drivers for sound card.
Install video card drivers so I could get beyond 800 by 600.
Set up network access.
Install firewall.
Install virus scanner.
Partition the rest of the drive and format it....
Several HOURS later.. I was done with this stage. Formatting a big NTFS partition is sloooooooow! I didn't include the updates or configuring extra software and hardware, as this was skipped with the Linux install. I did however have to swap out the USB keyboard and mouse that Linux recognised no problem, but needed drivers for Windows.
This got me to the same point as a freshly installed and untweaked copy of Fedora 6.
Windows from a rescue disk is a doddle I'll agree, but Windows from scratch is not as easy and most definitely not as fast, as installing most if not all versions of Linux. Plus, Linux gives way more software out of the box than Windows ever has. Codecs and media players and getting DVD playing set up are trivial once you know which packages to download. And with Codec buddy, which is already in Ubuntu, and I just found out will be in Fedora 8, makes the process stupidly simple. Even your grandmother's grandmother could do it. And the only thing you need to reboot for is the kernel update which is part of the video card driver installation.
In the time I took to set up Windows, I could have a Linux box installed, fully configured for web access and multimedia, downloaded a few games and apps, restored all my backups, set up Amarok to manage my music collection, installed and tweaked Beryl to the way I like it, and be reading slashdot. And I'm still a noob!
I think with all the paid for reviews kicking about, there is a perceived need to put something negative in any article. Would you believe a review that had nothing negative to say about a product?
I agree. Downloading applications and codecs is not a big deal. Windows doesn't come with all codecs installed by default, And I would imagine OSX is the same. and every OS needs more apps to make it truly useful. Even Windows and OSX users need to figure stuff out. And anybody who thinks differently is already using their chosen OS long enough to have forgotten the "How do I do this" phase that we all go through.
Computers are only intuitive if you have quite a bit of experience and are using a system that behaves in much the same way as your old one. take away a Windows user's right mouse button and they will have to adjust to a new way of doing something that is default behaviour in Windows.
For someone who has only used Windows, they have to get used to a new concept. The Repository. Instead of going to a multitude of sites, they need to change their habits to search a database of applications and other goodies to install the desired program in the easiest way possible, and in the case of Fedora, find out about the Livna and other third party repositories, and then find out how to get them working with their distro.
Its not hard, just different.
The second string to this problem is that there is no list of equivalent apps to the Windows programs that they are likely to have been used to using. This is a problem for anybody switching OS, so not a uniquely Linux speed bump. If I want a DVD burning app, where do I go to find out what is available and in the repositories for my distro? The forum regulars get so sick of the same old "I wanna burn a CD", "I wanna go to a chat room", etc. which has been answered a hundred times already and would be easy enough to search for.. Except the new user has perhaps only skimmed forums before, and is asking questions for the first time. And that assuming they know about the forums.
I'd like to see a short "welcome to the Linux world" tour. Sort of like the Windows welcome thingy that shows the new user the basic controls and concepts, and gives a quick tutorial on all the little bits that are known hiccups for new Linux users. Like why there are no codecs for popular media types installed by default, how to post a question on the forums politely etc. Nothing in depth.
It might not be a good idea to assume an existing broadband connection, So it would need to be a compact format. Perhaps an Open Office (or whatever similar app is installed) presentation to save space on the install disk instead of a video file or a streamed video. A dry web page with a long index and no screen shots or graphics is fine for existing users who know what they are after, but its just a big block of intimidating text to the noobs. It doesn't even need to be created by the distro maker. The community could do something and allow it to be included with the distro, and update it as required for each new version.
Not to forget that Linux can produce daemons at will..
I agree that 'running' the OS is doable, and nowadays, even running the more common applications (to browse, to mail, to type a letter,..) is no problem anymore. BTW, I know the whole discussion about 'it's the developers fault (or the creators of the drivers) that games can't play etc....but the fact remains it's far more difficult on Linux. And I also agree that some of it is due to not being familiar with the OS. *But* I think it's also objectively more difficult (still).
Games are written by third party developers. Linux has no technological deficit that would make it difficult to write games on that platform. There are quite a few that do run on Linux, so its just a matter of marketing. Nobody can reliably say how many Linux users are out there, or how many gamers are dual booting just to play games.
Let me give you a real example that I encountered myself. When I first installed one of the earlier versions of Mandrake Linux (one of the first times I tried linux), I was quite surprised how well it installed (compared to another time I tried to install a corel linux version which totally borked my computer). All hardware was recognized, and I didn't have any problems with my sound or anything. On itself, that could be considered 'ready'.
But...then I wanted to install the operabrowser on it. Now, I had done the same with my windows box (win2000) and there I went to the site, downloadsection, clicked on the exe, and it installed itself, and I could use it. Total time: a few minutes.
And I'll counter with a real life example too. Firefox 2 isn't in the Fedora 6 repositories. It is in the experimental ones, but I never had much success there. So all I do is download the archive, use the archive manager built into the file manager, and run the executable. It then automatically finds all my plugins and codecs, and sets everything up for me. Thunderbird is no different. Download, unpack and run. Firefox and Thunderbird find the settings because the directories they store the information in are in my home directory. I have reinstalled Linux several times, but only had to set up my email accounts once, because all the settings including my filtering rules are in these easily backed up directories.
For stuff in the repositories, its even easier. The system checks for libraries and dependencies, and gathers everything I need to install. then it downloads, installs and puts the shortcuts in the relevant places. Obviously this falls down if there is something that I want which isn't in the repositories, but nothing is perfect.
For everything else, there are source downloads. Although I freely admit I have only ever got one thing to compile from source, and that was a Gimp plugin.
So where Microsoft has one method, Linux has at least three. Repos, binary distributions, and source. Its up to the developers which they choose to use, and only one is distro specific.
Now, granted, things would have been much faster if I had been familiar with the OS, but still...why didn't it came with the KDE-browser perfectly working, out of the box? why are there a whole plethora of different versions who are incompatible with eachother? why can't I just 'click and install and run' as in windows? Why do I get interdependencies and why do I have to search for libraries?
Partly because you are talking about an old version. I have both Gnome and KDE on my Linux box, and apps from one work inside the other no problem. installing was just a matter of making a choice at start up, or installing the packages later through either Yum or Add/remove Software. Including the ability to swap between either. Not knowing the system is not really a fair criticism.
Even if I knew the OS well, it still points to a less user-friendly concept then windows is. And it's all good and well I'm a tinkerer myself and wanted to try out Linux. But, really, imagine Joe Doe - who even has no idea what the command line of windows is about - using Lin
Why exactly was Windows needed? The most expedient solution perhaps, but Windows was only being suggested as a means of downloading the tools to fix the install, not as the tool that would fix the install.
Ready for the desktop is a very subjective statement. Your definition is possibly different to mine. Linux has all the parts required to run as a desktop OS on adequately supported hardware. I'm using it as my main desktop OS right now, so if it isn't ready, what is missing?
My ex used to teach a very basic computer literacy class. One of her students, when asked to move the cursor with the mouse, picked up the mouse and tried to push the cursor across the screen with it. Does this render Windows not ready for the desktop because it doesn't always have a touch screen interface? Counter intuitive or what!! Each of us has learned a large amount of techniques to achieve our goal. A different OS may use a different approach.
I agree Linux isn't ready to be installed on any random collection of hardware by someone who doesn't know what they are doing, any more than Windows is. Linux can however be easier than Windows to install provided it can identify all the hardware it needs to. I myself had troubles installing Ubuntu too (though, it was the former version, not the latest one). On the other hand, I never had trouble with a win version, as yet (even though my first one was win95). That said, I never had trouble with installing Mandrake Linux (as it was called, back then), so I'm not claiming Linux is impossible to install. Nothing unusual there. Linux doesn't have as much support from hardware makers, so it is more hit and miss on equipment not bought specifically for it. The same is true of Vista, so its not exactly unique. But it must be said it's more difficult to use then windows. not for the Linux-expert, of course. And strangely enough, also not for the grandmother who just wants to surf and email a bit (linux has improved enough for that)...no, it's what I would call the 'power-users' who *aren't linux-experts who can't really do much with it.They want MORE than just surfing or the normal application-stuff; they want to install and try out a whole plethora of new, sometimes rather obscure programs and applications - and it's a pain in the ass if you want to run them on linux - if it's possible at all. You have a good point. Switching to any OS after having experience with something else is difficult. The more familiar the harder it is. The same Windows user would most likely have problems getting into OSX. As would a long time Linux user switching to Windows.
Linux has been the preserve of tinkerers and geeks for a long time. But now it is getting more mainstream. So things are getting easier. Companies are using Linux, and they demand more polished software than someone who puts performance over all else. Linux has always been fine for it's target market. Now the target is changing, so is Linux.
That a problem occured is not at issue. How you prepaired for the potential problems that could arise from doing something as potentially risky as installing a new Operating system is entirely your responsibility, and is not an excuse to be rude to people who were trying to help you.
As no doubt has been said many times before, you went on a user group. Asked for help, became agressive and had an overall bad experinece. Not exactly a big surprise. If you went up to a random member of the public in the street, grabbed him by the shirt and shouted in his face "I was burgled two years ago and you did nothing to help" you would not like the resulting actions of that person.
You tried to dual boot with what appears to be little or no knowlege of the risks, and you got burned. It happens. It has happened to me, and no doubt it will happen to others. The difference is that most people are able to calmly find help, or have enough sense to keep the disks needed to restore the computer to a working state BEFORE we start messing with things we don't understand enough to make an informed choice. I know vaguely how a car engine works, but I wouldn't be daft enough to think that equipped me with the knowledge to strip down the engine of a formula one car during a pit stop.
You on the other hand, armed only with the install disks of an operating system that is known to be pretty unforgiving of mistakes and having patchy hardware support, and no backup plan, decided to attempt this task on a computer with three hard drives. Something went wrong.. It happens. Get over it.
I'm still at a loss as to what your continued retelling of your story is intended to do.
Each time, you post about an incident that happened several years ago, which anybody reading the thread would see as a case of you being obnoxious and the Ubuntu people being exceptionally helpful. Each time you get called various things that most people don't really want to be called, and yet you still insist on recounting your experience. Why?
Because freedom has to be incomplete. Total freedom as a concept does not work. If I have the freedom to be alive, and I have the freedom to be dead, then how can I have the freedom to be both at the same time? And if I had the freedom to be in more than one state, It would conflict with the freedom to be in only one state.
Mixing reality and semantics is counter productive.
It seems there are some problems with cool'n' quiet and some hardware. My Nebula TV tuner card was getting random glitches when watching live TV or recording. I have a 939 Athlon single core and an Asus A8V board in my PVR, and it worked fine when I turned that feature off in the bios. Try removing the TV card and seeing if the problem persists.
On my Linux box, it seems to work fine. The boot up for Fedora 6 complained quite a bit when I didn't have it enabled, and it throttles the CPU speed quite nicely too. I'm running at 21-25degrees C with the stock cooler while idling, and going up to about 35-40 under load. Could be the AM2 CPU or perhaps it is more compatible with the hardware in the Linux box.
Apparently so.. http://www.pendrivelinux.com/
But then he would have to give up his rant that he has been rehashing at every possible oppertunity ever since!
The problem from what I saw on the thread wasn't with Ubuntu, but someone who didn't have the knowledge and the wit to follow the instructions needed. I dread to think what he would be like with a tough problem.
Forget the show.. I want the chair. grocery shopping would never be the same again..
After skimming through it again, I'm still impressed with how friendly and helpful the Ubuntu users were to such an obvious pratt. Please stick with Windows. [1] Ubuntu flaunts its philosophy of freedom from proprietary software, and the forum told me that if I want to access my computer after Ubuntu near-bricked it, I would need my Windows CD, then accused me of pirating it when I didn't instantly know where it was. Truth:- After you rendered your computer unable to boot, and didn't see fit to download any bootable operating system, someone suggested you use the Windows boot features to get one OS up and running so you could try to diagnose what the problem was on your computer with three different hard drives. Kinda tricky fixing a problem with no operating system available. And the computer was at no time bricked. stop being a drama queen. [2] When I explained what was wrong and what I had tried, the first, and several other posters completely ignored that and suggested things I had tried several times over. Truth:- When you vaguely mentioned some of the things you had tried, which included putting the boot loader on all three hard drives and typing something into the install options on the Ubuntu disk, you ignored any advice and ranted. [3] An Ubuntu forum poster demanded to know what version of Windows I had installed, in order to diagnose a well-defined error with the bootloader, which happens before it has any chance to load any OS, and then claimed it would be impossible to help me unless he knew this. Truth:- They asked for any information including which version of Windows you had, and you ranted. and got surprisingly defensive. [4] Several Ubuntu forum posters claimed that, as a logical consequence of me having burned the Ubuntu install CD, I must be able to burn new CDs they listed, forgetting that it was using the install CD in the first place that disabled my CD burner from being used! Truth:-The Ubuntu guys asked you to download another copy on a different computer and use the checksum to confirm that there had not been any errors with the download, and to use the disk verification feature to make sure that the disk had not got corrupted while burning. A common problem as it happens. And to download the bootable CD so you would have an operating system to help you figure out what the problem was. they had no way of knowing if you had the ability to burn another CD on the computer you were using to whine at them or not, but as you had access to at least one computer with a burner, you could have taken the drive from one computer and put it in the other working one easily enough.
I'm sure there are cases of people being obnoxious to someone looking for help on some forums, and there are no doubt many who will be dismissive of something they see as a trivial problem, but this was not the case here.
Just say no to mandatory registration, dongles and other similar shenanigans.
This isn't even a "pro free software" or "anti commercial" thing. Not all
commercial software vendors choose to treat their customers like this. Couldn't agree more. I used to be quite happy using Microsoft stuff. Even the activation that started with XP was a bit distasteful, but not that bad. Then WGA became compulsory, and I started looking at Linux. I went from 2 XP machines to 2 XP machines and a Frankenstein Linux box made of leftovers for testing, bought a KVM switch, and found that I was spending more and more time in Linux. No viruses, no websites attempting to load various spyware programs ot me, and no interrogation when I do an update. I'm now back to 2 computers, but only one is Windows, and thats my PVR, and only because my TV card doesn't have Linux drivers,and having a Windows box around is useful for the occasional thing that I haven't figured out in Linux yet. .
Using a tiny little bit of logic, don't you think that if someone were actually attempting to make a substance that could be weaponized, they might take precautions of not having the equipment in plain sight? Even an organisation as pathetically ineffective as Al Quieda would think of what might happen should someone see something out of the ordinary.
Whats next? A plumber gets called out to fix a flood in a basement, and sees a vaguely oriental looking customer has a lot of computer gear in the house, so thinks he has cracked a Chinese cyber warfare ring?
I wonder. A few points shaved off the good little OEM league tables would work wonders in the joint advertising fund. Although if they are actually powerless, there could be a lot of interesting things happening next January. The return rates on buggered up PCs must be quite high from what I have been hearing. Be it crapplets or design flaws, I don't think that the OEMs like Vista that much.
I suspect from all the stories I have heard, including those from people I know to be experienced techies, that Vista is not currently able to support a lot of hardware properly. It could be conflicts that XP was able to ignore, or problems with addressing memory, or even the cheaper memory used by some OEMs being not up to the job. This would explain the fact that some people are finding it works perfectly, while on other computers, it is an unstable slow mess. Perhaps they can get it working with the first service pack, perhaps not.
I have a strong suspicion that come Feburary next year, you will still be able to buy XP, and many OEMs will be still offering it.
Answer: I can't."
Sure you can...
You can certainly go with Dell... "http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs"
Or you can of course go Apple. "apple.com"
How about eBay? "http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-AMD64X-3200-COMPLETE-GAMING-COMPUTER-NR..." blah, blah -lameness filter kicked in...brand new gaming rig sold "NO OPERATING SYSTEM INCLUDED".
That's with only a minute's search. If you can't find more then you aren't looking hard enough. Maybe not as many choices as you want, but there are some. The other choice is to buy any used rig and put your choice of OS on it. Not strictly true. Good enough for a devils advocate argument, Kind of like Mc'Donalds saying that you can get a hamburger without a pickle on it, but you have to drive 20 miles out of your way and wait in line in the rain to get it, so you have a choice. The pickle being already factored into the price of the hamburger from Mc'Donalds, and no price existing on the register for the burger without a pickle.
To realistically answer the question, try walking into a random computer shop or picking a random on-line computer vendor, pick the specification you want and then decide the OS. I'll grant you the qualifier that has to be a computer that can handle running the chosen OS of choice in light of Vista's hardware requirements. Not so easy now.
Almost all the Linux pre installs are either experimental lines offered in a very limited way by a few big names right now, or small specialist builders who have been offering Linux as a part of their boutique lines for years at a price. Not quite the same thing.
Apart from Yasuko Nagazumi you mean..