[Gllug] Microsoft was distributing Ubuntu

[Christopher Hunter]

On Sat, 2007-06-30 at 21:30 +0100, Bernard Peek wrote:
> In message <1183201727.9448.10.camel at biasbox.bias.invalid>, Christopher 
> Hunter <chrisehunter at blueyonder.co.uk> writes
> 
> >A Windows install is now usually MUCH more difficult than a Linux one -
> >you seldom have all the right driver disks, drivers conflict with each
> >other, there's no actual software provided, and the endless reboots will
> >drive you mad!
> 
> That's so with Vista but that's because it's new. Those problems will 
> mostly go away as hardware manufacturers write new drivers. I'm running 
> Vista on a new laptop and it's certainly more trouble than XP.

This afternoon I had the misfortune to have to reinstall Windows XP on a
pretty "bog-standard" desktop machine.  The hard drive had died, and the
owner bought another - would I make it go?

He had the original "repair" disk which was useless because it wouldn't
allow installation to a blank hard drive.  We obtained (actually
borrowed) an XP install disk from another machine, booted from it and
when prompted used the serial number from the sticker that was attached
to the machine I was re-installing.

I then spent the next three hours locating drivers for the hardware from
the 'net on my laptop, and installing them to the desktop.  I installed
his copy of "Office" and a few other programs he uses regularly, and set
up usernames and passwords.  It took me a total of almost 5 hours to get
the thing back to a useful state.

Since the new hard drive in the box was much bigger than the old one, I
suggested that he might like to try a dual-boot.  I had an Ubuntu disk
with me, and installed and configured it for him.  All the hardware was
handled straight away without intervention, and it was the work of a few
moments to add the other users and their passwords.  The whole, fully
working Ubuntu install took just under half an hour!  

My friend phoned me earlier this evening and said that he'd been playing
with Ubuntu, and was astonished at how much faster it was than Windows -
perhaps we have another convert!

Chris


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