[SLUG] Re:Ubuntu 64 bit install

[Paul Teasdale]

On Wednesday 28 Dec 2005 18:53, john baldwin wrote:

Hi John,

Firstly thankyou for your response. I was not sure whether you had subscribed 
to the list or not before sending my reply but sent it to the list 
regardless. I'm glad you got my reply.

> my friendly engineer called round and it took him about 40 minutes to find
> the required driver on the jetway disk supplied, and it crashed his laptop
> 3 times.afterwards  he commented that 'interwebsystems of  chester' could
> have included in the package the correct drivers on a floppy and saved him
> a lot of work.
>
I agree that the supplier of your system supplier could have provided a SATA 
driver disk to make things easier. However I'm sure you'll agree that Jetway 
could make things easier too. I hate it when you buy a motherboard and it 
comes with a disk containing 100's of different drivers and it's not too 
obvious which exact ones you need for your particular motherboard.

> he says that it will be some time before 64 bit gets into 
> general use and there are compatible programmes to be used.
>
I use Debian as my preferred Linux distribution and out of almost 9000 
different packages there are only a handful that do not work under a 64 bit 
system for whatever reason so I slightly disagree with this comment.

I only slightly disagree because some of the package that are unavailable 
appear to be the most used most notably OpenOffice.org and many of the web 
browser plugins like flash. Also Debian isn't too easy to install (depending 
on your skills obviously) but is very easy to use after installation 
including seemless package management using the apt system.

> he dual booted 
> my sata drive so i can install ubuntu if i want later.he commented that
> sata/raid facilities are pretty advanced for a user like me and i'm
> unlikely to use my bells and whistles if i'm not a gamer or doing advanced
> work with graphics, 
>
They can be advanced but at the end of the day you need a hard disk. If that 
hard disk has an SATA interface then you need to be able to recognise the 
controller in order to recognise the hard drive and this isn't advanced but 
essential. SATA is just relatively new when compared to IDE/SCSI and 
therefore older operatings systems (including both Linux and XP) don't have 
the necessary drivers built-in as standard.

> so now i've got XP on  and once it settles i'll have a 
> play about with linux, 
>
Well I'm glad you have got yourself sorted for the moment. I do hope you try 
Linux again soon. If you can make it why not try to come to one of our 
meetings. If I know you are coming I will be more that happy to bring my 64 
bit system along for you to have a "play" with. How about the February 
meeting?

> the fact that there are so many linux systems 
> available with mixed results trying to install them mitigates against them
> unless you have computer skills in abundance-again thanks for the many
> interesting responses
>
I totally agree that the number of Linux distros available turns potential 
Linux users off (in my opinion of course). Linux veterans call it choice and 
argue that is a good thing (and it is in lots of respects) but for people who 
just want to install and use Linux it confuses them.

As for the install process I find Windows XP no easier to install than most of 
the mainstream Linux distros. No disrespect but I think what people tend to 
forget when they complain about Linux installs is that they never actually 
installed Windows themselves but bought it pre-installed with their PC.

Regards,

Paul. 
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