On Wed, 2003-03-26 at 06:20, Weekley, Arnold (C)(STP) wrote: > > Original body cut out to preserve space > > While you're right about RH not including mp3 and video apps out of the box > turning off many new users, I disagree with other observations. (BTW, I converted > all my music to ogg-vorbis format which gives me better quality and uses less disk > so I no longer care about that.) > > 1) Windows is easier to install: I've installed Windows and Linux several times > on several different computers and have always found that I've gotten Linux > to work with less trouble and time than Windows. Admittedly, this can be more > troublesom with some hardware which Linux hasn't caught up to yet.
I'm going to disagree with any argument that Windows is easier to install (that is, I'm agreeing with you ;). On the surface, a Windows install *seems* easier (sort of). One of the major reasons for this is that it only installs the OS and some utilities. Imagine if it also gave you the option to install: Visual C++ MS Office MS BackOffice (IIS, SQL Server, etc) etc, etc. Most Linux installs do the equivalent of this. They install the OS /and/ the applications. And the install is arguably as easy as any Windows install. Sorry, but MS can't match it. Take any Windows box and set it up to do what a stock RH install does and you'll have a better comparison. You would easily spend hours (and $$$). You can come close to what Windows does by selecting "Personal Desktop" in RH 8.0 and just taking the defaults (and you still get more). Also, installing Windows is only easy if you are not doing anything special (i.e. dual-boot). If you are, Linux beats Windows hands-down. MS tries to maintain simplicity by removing choice. I'll agree that life *can* be simpler without choice, but that's not the life I'd choose <wink>. It's funny that just yesterday I was helping a friend install Win2k on his new P4 and it would refuse to boot (OS not found) when it got to the second stage of the install. Suspecting HW problems, I did a quick RH 8.0 install. Went without a hitch. Finally tracked it down to a buggy BIOS that didn't do CHS translation properly on large disks (changing it to LBA from Auto worked). Your typical Windows user would have never figured it out. The point is, however, that Linux worked OOB, Windows didn't and required what would be considered by the average user to be arcane knowledge. Plus, the fact that I did a RH 8.0 install *just* to test the hardware should say something about the ease of installing Linux ;) > 2) Upgrading Windows: My daughter had to upgrade her Thinkpad T21 from Windows 98 > to Windows 2000 a few months ago because she needed to install an application > which required Windows 2000 or Windows XP. She had the following problems after: > Display would only display 800x600, CD Burner wouldn't work, modem wouldn't work, > HP Printer wouldn't work, HP Scanner wouldn't work, Zip drive wouldn' work. > The External Hard Drive she uses to back up the system crashes her system > whenever she plugs it in now. I've located updated drivers to fix everything > except the modem. For some reason, the system won't even recognize that it exists. > > 3) Upgrading Windows: I've got an AMD K2-400 which I loaded Windows 2000 on. Worked > fine. Installed Service pack 2 and it won't boot. I've re-installed several times > and it always hangs hard during the boot after installing SP2. I've had a MSCE > who I know is very good look at it and he hasn't been able to figure out what is > going on. The only place Windows has Linux beat (as far as installs go) is with hardware support. And that depends upon what hardware is being discussed (old vs new, common vs. specialized) and has more to do with hardware vendors than anything the Linux community or the Microsoft juggernaut has done on their own. -- Cliff Wells, Software Engineer Logiplex Corporation (www.logiplex.net) (503) 978-6726 x308 (800) 735-0555 x308 -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
