Repair Windows XP

In article et, Conor
wrote:
Windows costs nothing when you buy a PC.

This is uk.comp.homebuilt (at least, that's where I'm reading it) ... many
people here buy PCs in bits and typically pay £80 for XP Pro OEM (I'm
assuming nobody would be daft enough to install XPH or Vasti). In that
situation you can save £80 by installing linux instead -- IFF linux will
do all you need.

Dell charge a £50 premium over a Windows box to put Ubuntu on.

One can apparently buy a Windows box from Dell, refuse the Windows licence,
and get a refund. There's a thread about this in uk.comp.linux at the
moment.

When your computer goes tits up, you're more likely to find someone you
know who can fix Windows than Linux.

True ... but here in uch may we not be expected to have /some/ clue?

When you buy hardware, you're pretty much guaranteed it'll "just work"
when you use Windows whereas in Linux, it's a bit of a lottery ...

That is much less true now than it was ... you can mitigate the effect by
buying hardware that lags behind the bleeding edge -- that's also likely to
save you money.

... especially when the Linux distro authors tell you a network card is
fully supported in the current version of a ditro, even going as far to
recommend it, only for you to find out that it was in an older version
but not the current.

That doesn't help, certainly. I've never run into that problem myself but I
have heard of it.

Cheers,
Daniel.

In article , Simon Finnigan wrote:
It just goes to show that no matter how hard you stamp your
feet about Linux style OS`s being secure, they seem to have plenty of
security issues.

To quote from that article:

Turns out the systems, which were sponsored by Canonical and hosted
by the community, were running an old version of Ubuntu. Tsk, tsk.

The problem seems to be that the sites hosted by Canonical for Gentoo were
affected by the same exploit that led Ubuntu to take some of their site
down recently. This isn't really a linux problem -- any system can have
bugs in it -- it's just an example of sloppy management of a hosting
operation. You should no more run a site with an obsolete version of Ubuntu
(or any other distro) than an unpatched IIS.

Cheers,
Daniel.

Daniel James wrote:

In article et, Conor
wrote:
Windows costs nothing when you buy a PC.

This is uk.comp.homebuilt (at least, that's where I'm reading it) ... many
people here buy PCs in bits and typically pay £80 for XP Pro OEM (I'm
assuming nobody would be daft enough to install XPH or Vasti). In that
situation you can save £80 by installing linux instead -- IFF linux will
do all you need.

It's that little word "instead" that gets up my nose. What if I have
applications that runs on Windows? What if I develop software for Windows
using Windows compilers and tools? I could of course use an emulator, and
Linux zealots love that idea. But why should I? Why this extra layer of
slow down and complication when it's completely unnecessary?

This is not a criticism of Linux per se. Im going to use Ubuntu in another
context. But not as a Window replacement.

On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:56:18 +0100
johannes wrote:

It's that little word "instead" that gets up my nose. What if I have
applications that runs on Windows? What if I develop software for Windows
using Windows compilers and tools? I could of course use an emulator, and
Linux zealots love that idea. But why should I? Why this extra layer of
slow down and complication when it's completely unnecessary?

This is not a criticism of Linux per se. Im going to use Ubuntu in another
context. But not as a Window replacement.

Horses for courses. I dual boot, I also use virtual machines, I have a
Win2K machine that I use under Linux and another one that I use under
Vista on my laptop.

There's dual boot capability, virtual machines, emulators, take your
pick. You're not limited to one OS.

--
Often statistics are used as a drunken man uses lampposts -
for support rather than illumination.

In article , Johannes wrote:
[I wrote:]
In that situation you can save £80 by installing linux instead -- IFF
linux will do all you need.

It's that little word "instead" that gets up my nose. What if I have
applications that runs on Windows? What if I develop software for Windows
using Windows compilers and tools?

Don't let it get up your nose!

I did write "IFF linux will do all you need" (IFF is short for "if and only
if"). I certainly agree that there will be people who need to use Windows for
some purposes, and those people are going to have to have Windows anyway, so
using linux won't save them anything. I'm in that position myself.

However, for those users that /don't/ have any specific requirement for
Windows linux is a potential saving. Anyone whose PC use is limited to
browsing, EMail and a little wordprocessing doesn't need to use Windows at
all to have a perfectly satisfactory PC experience. It's their choice,
though.

I do have one PC that I don't need to run anything Windowsey on, and that PC
runs only linux. The laptop I'm using today (not at home) runs only Win2k
(which is inconvenient when I want to develop software for linux using linux
compilers and tools ... but Cygwin isn't bad), my other machines have
swappable hard drives and can run either.

I really must get a Mac ...

I could of course use an emulator, and Linux zealots love that idea. But
why should I? Why this extra layer of slow down and complication when
it's completely unnecessary?

Quite. Don't do it if you don't want to. I have a couple of Windows apps that
I occasionally use under linux using Wine ... it's not as satisfactory as
using Windows, but if I'm in the middle of something that requires linux
it'll usually do. The slow-down isn't significant, BTW, for most things (even
on relatively old, slow hardware) but the time spent setting it all up can
be.

I really must try out Windows in a VM under linux, and see whether that runs
all the things I need -- of course, I'd still need to buy a Windows licence
for that, so there'd be no financial saving.

This is not a criticism of Linux per se. Im going to use Ubuntu in another
context. But not as a Window replacement.

I hope that works well for you. My experience is that linux can be a very
pleasant alternative to Windows for normal desktop work, too ... but (as you
say) there are some apps written for Windows and only for Windows that work
best on Windows, and for them I recommend ... Windows!

Cheers,
Daniel.

Daniel James wrote:

In article , Johannes wrote:
[I wrote:]
In that situation you can save £80 by installing linux instead -- IFF
linux will do all you need.

It's that little word "instead" that gets up my nose. What if I have
applications that runs on Windows? What if I develop software for Windows
using Windows compilers and tools?

Don't let it get up your nose!

I did write "IFF linux will do all you need" (IFF is short for "if and only
if"). I certainly agree that there will be people who need to use Windows for
some purposes, and those people are going to have to have Windows anyway, so
using linux won't save them anything. I'm in that position myself.

However, for those users that /don't/ have any specific requirement for
Windows linux is a potential saving. Anyone whose PC use is limited to
browsing, EMail and a little wordprocessing doesn't need to use Windows at
all to have a perfectly satisfactory PC experience. It's their choice,
though.

I do have one PC that I don't need to run anything Windowsey on, and that PC
runs only linux. The laptop I'm using today (not at home) runs only Win2k
(which is inconvenient when I want to develop software for linux using linux
compilers and tools ... but Cygwin isn't bad), my other machines have
swappable hard drives and can run either.

I really must get a Mac ...

I could of course use an emulator, and Linux zealots love that idea. But
why should I? Why this extra layer of slow down and complication when
it's completely unnecessary?

Quite. Don't do it if you don't want to. I have a couple of Windows apps that
I occasionally use under linux using Wine ... it's not as satisfactory as
using Windows, but if I'm in the middle of something that requires linux
it'll usually do. The slow-down isn't significant, BTW, for most things (even
on relatively old, slow hardware) but the time spent setting it all up can
be.

I really must try out Windows in a VM under linux, and see whether that runs
all the things I need -- of course, I'd still need to buy a Windows licence
for that, so there'd be no financial saving.

This is not a criticism of Linux per se. Im going to use Ubuntu in another
context. But not as a Window replacement.

I hope that works well for you. My experience is that linux can be a very
pleasant alternative to Windows for normal desktop work, too ... but (as you
say) there are some apps written for Windows and only for Windows that work
best on Windows, and for them I recommend ... Windows!

Cheers,
Daniel.


It is interesting that Linux makes inroads into more scientific establishments
and super-computing. Access to OS source code is a big bonus when testing
performance and reliability of numerical algorithms. The European Weather Centre
(ECMWF) in Reading, UK use Linux for their work stations. Linux has definitely
arrived as a mature system, but it is horses for courses.

On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:16:32 +0100
Daniel James wrote:

I really must try out Windows in a VM under linux, and see whether that runs
all the things I need -- of course, I'd still need to buy a Windows licence
for that, so there'd be no financial saving.

I'm running Innotek VirtualBox under Linux here and Win2K runs fine in
it, Win2K3 OTOH slows right down. I haven't tried it in VMWare though.


--
Often statistics are used as a drunken man uses lampposts -
for support rather than illumination.

On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:16:32 +0100
Daniel James wrote:


I really must get a Mac ...


Heretic :-)

--
Often statistics are used as a drunken man uses lampposts -
for support rather than illumination.

I demand that Trevor Best may or may not have written...

I'm running Innotek VirtualBox under Linux here and Win2K runs fine in
it, Win2K3 OTOH slows right down. I haven't tried it in VMWare though.

Are you sure? 2K3 = 2300...

--
| Darren Salt | linux or ds at | nr. Ashington, | Toon
| RISC OS, Linux | youmustbejoking,demon,co,uk | Northumberland | Army
| Kill all extremists!

The future lies ahead.

On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:46:41 +0100
Darren Salt wrote:

I demand that Trevor Best may or may not have written...

I'm running Innotek VirtualBox under Linux here and Win2K runs fine in
it, Win2K3 OTOH slows right down. I haven't tried it in VMWare though.

Are you sure? 2K3 = 2300...


My most humble apologies, I promise I won't do it again. I will go for
an hour's worth of self flagellation now and then bathe in salt water
afterwards.


--
Often statistics are used as a drunken man uses lampposts -
for support rather than illumination.