Windows Rant

[Basil Chupin]

On 11/07/10 18:51, TopBot . wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:15 AM, NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net 
> <mailto:glgxg at sbcglobal.net>> wrote:
>
>     <rant>
>     I stopped supporting Windows for my clients six months ago but still
>     maintain Win for my relatives et al. Performing what would be simple
>     changes in Ubuntu on WinXP brought home why I stopped supporting
>     paying
>     clients.
>
>     1. My brother had an old 700Mhz Sony PC with 348Mb of ram & I
>     decided to
>     give him one of my faster 1.8Ghz/1Gb recycled machines. Figured it
>     would
>     be a simple swap of the hard drive (similar to Ubuntu); forgot
>     that you
>     need to do an reinstall in-place of Windows to get the drive to
>     work in
>     new hardware. One week later he *finally* has the machine.
>
>      The process involved reinstalling WinXP(Home) over his existing
>     install (data was preserved), reinstalling all new security upgrades &
>     drivers for SP3, retesting, rebooting about a bazillion times,
>     retesting, rebooting, etc. Overall it was a complete PITA.
>
>     2. In the process of upgrading my brother's system, my
>     2.4Ghz/512Mb test
>     machine died. The death of the machine was apparent as it had had
>     thermal shutdowns etc. When the machine died I pulled the ram & other
>     associated parts as usual. I then realized that the ram would work
>     in my
>     son's Sony PCV-RX770(UC) that had previouly been running with only
>     512Mb
>     of ram.
>
>      I pulled the machine, brought it over to my test bed, added another
>     512Mb of ram from the the dead 2.4Ghz recycled machine for a total of
>     1Gb, fired it up and updated Ubuntu 10.04. No issues. I then tried
>     dual
>     booting to WinXP(Pro)...
>
>      The machine wouldn't boot to WinXP in normal mode. It would only boot
>     to Safe Mode. After several hours of messing about with it, I finally
>     put the machine back in his room & reconnected the original
>     keyboard and
>     wireless mouse; the machine booted in WinXP just fine. Pulled the
>     machine and brought back to my test bed & the machine wouldn't boot in
>     WinXP again (just would keep rebooting). Brought the wireless mouse &
>     keyboard to the test bed & it booted just fine. Note: he uses the dual
>     boot to run his iTunes & a few Win specific games. The issue was that
>     WinXP didn't have the necessary drivers to run a simple USB
>     keyboard and
>     PS2 mouse... amazing eh?
>
>     So, to all those that complain about Ubuntu/linux not working with
>     hardware xyz, keep in mind that it's not just Ubuntu/linux that have
>     such issues. A simple mouse/keyboard change in WinXP(Pro) prevented
>     Windows from booting into normal mode.
>      Further, we become accustomed to having the luxury of pulling a hard
>     drive in Ubuntu/linux and swapping into another machine with out
>     issues.
>     If you've ever had the displeasure of trying the same on a Windows
>     machine you'll know what I am talking about.
>
>     Disclaimer; one of my specialties a few years ago was maintaining and
>     supporting Windows machines. I reckon that you could classify me as a
>     'Windows Expert'. I could fix nearly any system (including eradicating
>     viruses without reinstalling etc). So I'm not unfamiliar with the OS,
>     nor bashing it overall. I'm just pointing out that sometimes we forget
>     how difficult it is to make simple hardware changes in Windows,
>     and how
>     easy it is in Ubuntu/linux.
>
>     My apologies to the list for the rant, but it's things like this that
>     make me appreciate Ubuntu/linux daily. I deal with bugs/issues in
>     Ubuntu/linux daily, but that is primarily because I choose to do
>     so (via
>     this list). And yes, followups should probably go to the 'sounder'
>     list...
>     </rant>
>
>
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>
>
> I've had similar problems when swapping my hard drive or even the 
> monitor (it wouldn't even go into safe mode on any other monitor) with 
> my dual boot windows xp while my Ubuntu worked just fine.

Ummm, let's not getting all excited and carried away here..... :-)

You just swapped in another hard drive and "Ubuntu worked just fine" - 
and without having to make any alterations to fstab (as a for-instance)?

XP won't even let you change the colour of your underwear without 
wanting to be "authenticated" again. But stating what you did about 
Ubuntu, me thinks is kinda going a tad overboard :-) .

I must say that this was the case some time ago, but no longer. All to 
do with UUID I think. But then I am more wrong than right... :-( .



> +1 for linux.

As a general and accurate comment: totally agree - +x to the power of n 
for Linux OS.

BC


-- 
Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.