Comments on: Vista’s Reign of Terror Continues

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:46:39 +0000

Drivers are the only real hassle with Linux, and then, it’s only for newer devices. The veteran laptop is a Pentium with 256K, so it doesn’t take much to run.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:27:55 +0000

For the most part, Ubuntu Linux, as distributed, works just fine, and it regularly updates itself with no hassle. Anyone who needs a free, full-featured OS for an older computer is well advised to try it.

i’m glad to hear that. i’ve got a couple of older computers sitting around that i want to put to work, and that’s what i had just about decided on. always nice to get confirmation.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:53:42 +0000

I need to install it, Ubuntu, on my ancient back-up laptop for the hurricane season, because I’m not ready for the two hour wait every time I turn it on for MS to take over for its multiple upgrades.

I’ve burned the CD, but inertia and other priorities have intervened.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:03:04 +0000

For some of us, a lot depends on where our livelihood takes us. Mine has been about 90 percent in the Windows world. It doesn’t matter if I like it or not (for the most part, not); I just have to exhibit facility in using it and writing code for it.

A few months ago, I installed Ubuntu Linux on one of my machines, a “senior citizen” among my PCs. The installation was the smoothest I’ve ever experienced with any OS. (Full disclosure: I’ve never installed any OS on any Mac.) The distro contained about what a typical office worker might need. I found that adding and upgrading s/w can be a bit of a bother, but I attribute that to my personal inexperience. For the most part, Ubuntu Linux, as distributed, works just fine, and it regularly updates itself with no hassle. Anyone who needs a free, full-featured OS for an older computer is well advised to try it.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 01:16:44 +0000

Everyone keeps complaining about “how hard it is to use Linux” and don’t think about “text-based” people. I don’t have a Mac because I’m text-based, I’d rather use the command line than click icons. Mac is the obviously superior PARC derivative system. It costs more, but it provides something for the cost.

Many people have complained about the iPhone being a gimmick, but it works for graphics-based people, because a family member who has never “mastered” a standard cell phone was able to do everything she wanted with a iPhone. I would never buy one because it was too frustrating for me when compared to my standard cell phone text system, but for her it just made sense.

There is no single “best” system, but Windows isn’t even good, based on what it claims to be designed to do.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:10:46 +0000

As someone who makes his living creating derivatives of Red Hat distributions for use inside embedded appliances, and who has installed every version of Red Hat Linux since version 3.0.3, I do have to agree that if you have supported hardware, Red Hat Linux has *always* been easier to install than *any* version of Windows. Recent Fedora releases and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 are especially ridiculously slick, the new installer is Yum-based and finally does away with that awkward pause to compute dependencies that earlier versions of RHEL had.

That said, I have to point out that MacOS/X is even easier to install, with even fewer questions than RHEL5 — basically, you answer one question about partitioning, one question about what software packages on the disk to install, one question about your user name and password, and that’s that, it just does it. But then, MacOS/X was actually designed, as vs. conglomerated in much the same way as layers of mud at the bottom of a lake the way that Windows has developed.

Oh, I do gotta say kickstart for Red Hat Linux is slicker’n’snot. If you’re in a corporate shop , you can set up a kickstart server and the damned machines *install themselves* (assuming they’re PXE-bootable), no interaction from a human needed. Zero questions, woohoo!

– Badtux the MacPenguin

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:08:42 +0000

I’m obviously not making myself clear, Michael. If you pay for something it should be better than what you can get for free in a capitalist system. If you expect to be paid, you should do something worthy of the money.

For the money, Vista should install itself with an absolute minimum of user intervention and just work.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:45:41 +0000

Bryan, there’s nothing sad about Linux failing to be a corporate product, this is a misapprehension. I favor Ubuntu, by the way. As far as having customer support, though, I’m sure Redhat’s is better than Redmond’s.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:02:23 +0000

The “sad” part, Michael, is that the ease that is provided for nothing in Linux distributions isn’t available when you pay, which is extremely annoying. Hell, Redhat’s 5.0 was a much easier install than Windows 98, and I carried a copy with me if I needed to clean a disk because the MS fdisk utility sucked so badly. I’ve always rated “ease of use” based on how often you had to answer questions on an installation, and the logic of the questions, not the design elements of the screen on which the question was asked. The fact you can answer a question with a mouse click instead of pressing a key does not make the process friendly.

Kryten, Bill’s mother worked for IBM, not DEC, and he dropped out of a business curriculum, not engineering, Paul Allen was the coder, Bill has never been more than a semi-competent junior programmer, and he didn’t need to be. For years they have been buying up smaller technically superior companies and their products. MS paid licensing fees on DOS and Windows for years, because they bought the rights to other people’s work, just like IBM did for years. Microsoft has never been an innovator, but they had the superior marketing and business model. Now they’ve settled into their role of near monopoly and don’t have to really care.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:22:40 +0000

Hmmm… I suppose it also shows that even a total dweeb like Gates is smarter than most Americans, and that a lot of money can make a looser into a winner. Is that why American’s love him (and Bush), so? The false hope and false expectations?

Yeowch! That’s gotta hurt! LOL

Yeah… I’m bad. So sue me. LOL