Oranges to Wintels?

[Jonathan Hutchins]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Hammitt [mailto:thammitt at kc.rr.com]

> My main point is that I can spend about 5 minutes of my 
> actual time setting up a fully usable, scriptable, great-looking GUI
system with 
> Linux and it would take, what, a couple of days to set up a windoze system

> to have the special software required to try to have the same 
> functionality?  

Come on, Tony, be real.  Maybe a System390 could do a full GUI Linux install
in 5 minutes, but in the real world it takes 30-90 minutes, just like
Windows.  With Windows, the OS install is pretty much done then, and there's
not much to do except install the software.  Since it doesn't have a
separate configuration tool for each widget, program, tool bar, etc. there's
not much to set, and the defaults are 99% functional, unlike Linux.

With Linux, the software installs too, and then you have to tweak the
network settings, and track down the version of the Xserver that will
actually work with your card at something other than 640x480 or <hard
reboot>, and you have to uninstall webconfig and linuxconf, and you have to
try to figure out why you get this deafening sound when KDE loads, but can't
play CD's or MP3's, and why Gnome says you don't have a sound mixer, and you
have to track down the dependencies for rpmfind, and then spend a day
finding and reading the HOWTOs for pump or dhcpcd or ipchains or ipadmin or
whatever it is this release, and then you have to figure out which
configuration tool locked all the ports except telnet and anonymous FTP, and
then copy over all your custom scripts and tools...

I've installed versions of RedHat from about 1.2 through 7.2, Mandrake for
several versions through 8.1, Caldera, Turbo, and a couple others.  I have
not tried suSe or DebIan.  I have found most of the GUI installers likely to
run to lockup or install then crash on reboot with older hardware like
Compaqs and IBM's from the late '90's.

It's great fun, but I wouldn't tell anybody I could have them a Linux box
they could use without help in less than three days.  And if they want to
change something, or install something, they'd better either be a programmer
or a sysadmin, or they'll have to wait until I have a free day or two to set
it up and work the bugs out for them.

Whereas I like my Windows machines to be box stock (I'll always have the
tools I'm used to), and I can launch the install, go fix something, come
back and launch the Office97 install, fix something else, install
pcAnywhere, Notes, and the ticket tracking software and I'm off home with a
portable system configured to manage a secure network, total time less than
two hours.

Workstations?  Norton Ghost, 30 minutes, change SID, join network, abandon
on user's desktop, visit in six months with the next version of our internal
software.  Spend the afternoon with a redhead and a thoroughbred hunt horse.

Yes, we paid a lot more for the software, but we've already amortized it,
and we don't have to keep a staff of professional programmers on hand to get
it to load properly, and we could do that part of my job for a lot less per
hour than we could pay a Linux admin to do it.