On Thursday 07 April 2005 18:35, Bob Dove wrote:
I must say that installing Win is much MUCH easier than installing Linux!!!
Many times we see articles on how (allegedly) difficult it is to migrate from Windows to GNU/Linux - What is it like going the other way....
The first Windows install I did entailed swapping six 1.44Meg floppies in and out before having to hunt down the driver disk(s) for the graphics card.. Moving up to Ver 95, things were a little easier as it all came on a single CD, but each time a new driver was installed, the whole system needed a reboot - This also applied when changing simple things like network settings. Version 98 was no better in this respect, and if you had any non Dos partitions, the dumb OS wouldn't see them.. I gave up on trying to install M$ after 98.
From the user perspective, I found Windows to be very limiting.. Only one virtual desktop, and no text consoles. Many a time, I would be punching Ctrl-Alt-Fn when an app went in to zombie mode. Then there were all those "General exception faults" that occurred that required a reboot to clear... And why, oh why, did Bill Gates have to implement a BSOD when an app did an illegal operation (and you thought *nix error messages were terse)..
For what I do, a system that allows programs to terminate gracefully when a critical error occurs is a major plus - That and multiple virtual desktops, six (or more) text consoles (plus login sessions via ethernet or serial)..
Could I go back to Windows ? Not unless it supports multiple sessions, allows me to have total control over hardware at the lowest level and can do hard realtime control. If I identify a bug, can I have the source code to fix and recompile (some how, I think not).
Regards, Paul.