Interesting Links for 31-08-2012

[andrewducker]

• What Killed the Linux Desktop
  (tags: linux software operatingsystems )
• Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes. Huzzah for censorship!
  (tags: apple censorship usa military )
• Antarctic may host hundreds of billions of tons of methane.
  (tags: antarctic methane globalwarming )
• Why Johnny can’t stream: How video copyright went

Comments

[steer]

What Killed the Linux Desktop Hmm... cf the usage stats here

[steer]

You have my sympathies. Work is the only place where anyone ever runs Centos -- I'm in the same position. It's an absolute horror of an OS. I believe the logic goes as follows

[philmophlegm]

"My experience is that if you install windows onto a new machine it is every bit as difficult to get hardware working properly as Linux."

I certainly don't doubt your experience and I have no experience of Linux, but I've not any problems with the four Windows 7 fresh installs I've done. One of those was on a high end gaming PC with cutting edge hardware, one was on an older ex-cutting edge PC, one was on a new build media centre PC and one was on an gaming laptop. You might just have been unlucky.

Where I've had problems with PC builds in recent years, it's always been hardware-to-hardware incompatibilities rather than operating system problems. The absolute classic in this respect was my memory voltage issue of 2008:
http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/52366.html
Resolved as follows:
http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/52678.html

[steer]

You might just have been unlucky.

Then I've been unlucky many times on a variety of hardware... actually that's unfair, I've only installed windows 7 on three different machines. I guess a total of four times... and one went smoothly.

It's perhaps an unfair comparison. Linux is designed to be installed by the users so you should expect it to be easier and more professional so it's not that much of a surprise that it is (in my experience at least) a nicer experience.

I've installed 98 about a zillion times (I exaggerate but I estimate it as several dozen -- my university stuck with it right up until it was about to go out of lifetime) because I was charged with a little bit of sysadmin for an academic department -- and that really was a pig. Compared to 98 and XP windows 7 is lovely to install. You know, I don't think I ever installed Vista even once.

Where I've had problems with PC builds in recent years, it's always been hardware-to-hardware incompatibilities rather than operating system Heh... glad I'm not the only person

[philmophlegm]

I must admit that whenever I've upgraded hard disks, I've always done a fresh install of Windows.

"Heh... glad I'm not the only person putting things together from bits."

The "media centre" PC was put together from the leftovers of my old Core 2 Duo gaming PC and a new mid-range (but compact) graphics card and a cheap-but-nice-looking media centre case (about the size of a typical A/V amp). It took some creativity with cooling, but it's now capable of stably running the likes of Skyrim on my 50" plasma screen. And it was mostly made from leftovers.

[steer]

I must admit that whenever I've upgraded hard disks, I've always done a fresh install of Windows.

Heh... that was my take home. Irritating though because you've then got to install Office, antivirus, steam, etc etc... many hours to get back to the system you used to have.

[andrewducker]

Next time you're going through the pain of this, I recommend http://ninite.com/ which will give you most of the common stuff very quickly.

[steer]

Aha... that is a cunning little thingy. Thank you.

[philmophlegm]

But also a chance to easily get rid of the crapware that you installed, used once and then never needed again...

Here's my account of the media centre build by the way:
http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/230758.html

[steer]

It looks great -- I really hate working in those cramped cases though! (That is a lot of fans per square centimeter).

[strawberryfrog]

> How often do you install windows from scratch? My experience is that if you install windows onto a new machine it is every bit as difficult to get hardware working properly as Linux

Every couple of years, and it's usually fairly simple for me.

[steer]

Heh... I'm wondering now if I'm doing something systematically wrong... because it's not like I install windows once or twice -- I'd say, starting from windows 95 I'm probably at between 50 and 100 installs. (Leave out 3.11 -- UGH!).

That said, whenever I've posted long "Oh god, I installed windows 7, what a hideous experience" I've usually got "Yes, it is isn't it, but not as bad as XP/Vista was" comments. But three separate people on this thread have said they installed windows trouble free. This is something I've never heard people say before -- I guess it's a sign of the times.

[strawberryfrog]

The pain point for me a couple of times was that I really wanted raid mirrored drives (i.e. a drive fails and I carry on, laughing) and the installer for a couple of versions of windows didn't recognise the mobo's raid controller during the phase where it had to format and copy files onto that drive. So this required making an install disk containing the right driver, selecting the option to load the driver off the disk before continuing with setup. Complex, but it's signposted and if you know where you want to get to and what the reason for the detour is, not very difficult.

Both windows installer support and mobo hardware raid controllers have come along since then, so I don't think it's an issue any more. We'll see when I update that machine to win8.

[steer]

Oh yes -- I share your pain here. RAID and windows used to be a tricky combination. Fortunately, I never bother with it for home machines and work machines usually have linux or solaris.

[anton_p_nym]

I've installed Windows Vista and Windows 7 on clean hardware several times and haven't had any problems; I reinstalled Windows XP on pre-configured hardware and found it trouble free too.

Back in the Windows 3.1 and DOS days installation was a grind, as was adding new hardware. (And Windows Millenium... *shudder*) But these days it's almost entirely plug-and-play.

-- Steve hasn't touched Linux because, for him, Windows is an "it just works" platform.

[steer]

Three people on this thread have now reported clean hardware windows 7 installs which "just work". That amazes me to be honest... it really does. I've had 1 in 4 -- trouble free. I mean it could be that there's another 9 people quietly nodding and thinking "Yup, windows 7 sure is a nightmare" and not posting. Or it could be I've been regularly very unlucky.