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> "all the advantages listed about Windows XP are also present in Linux" You mean, are present in Linux TODAY. Installing Linux 22-years ago, when XP shipped,
by tiffanyh 3y ago
> "all the advantages listed about Windows XP are also present in Linux"
You mean, are present in Linux TODAY.
Installing Linux 22-years ago, when XP shipped, was hugely painful and only the most technical would attempt it.
Windows XP marked the begin of an era when corporations replaced analog processes with digital.
It sounds so foreign now, but in the late 90s - it was still common for corporations to send printed memo to employees as the predominate form of internal communication.
So there's a lot of nostalgia for XP, because it was the first OS used by the masses.
- dboreham 3y agoHmm. XP was just one of many NT releases. The first to be marketed into the retail PC segment. Otherwise not really any more or less important than the others. It didn't mean anything as far as the broad landscape of corporate workflow.
- louthy 3y ago> Installing Linux 22-years ago, when XP shipped, was hugely painful and only the most technical would attempt it. That’s still the case with Linux now. I did two recent Linux installs (different distros) and it’s still a nightmare of finding drivers, scripts, etc. to get everything setup. On one of my devices it still doesn’t recognise all the USB ports attached to the motherboard (but does recognise some), I just got tired of trying to discover why. It’s still often the case that BIOS changes are required, etc. Linux is not accessible to the average non-technical user at all. The moment one thing goes wrong, they’re done. Windows is going in the wrong direction for sure, but still when it comes to everything “just working”, it’s hard to beat.
- bongodongobob 3y agoYup. I have two separate playbooks for my laptop and desktop for all the quirky shit that needs to happen to get a working install. Yes, you can get to a usable desktop pretty quickly. But getting everything right is still an hour or better process, post-install, in 2024.
- louthy 3y ago> But getting everything right is still an hour or better process, post-install, in 2024… … for someone who knows what they’re doing. Anyone non-technical would be terrified of the steps needed to get a Linux install into a good state for their machine. It could easily take them days to get a setup that's sound (depending on the level of driver support for their hardware). To be fair, one of the installs I did was Raspberry PI OS (funnily enough for a Raspberry PI!) - and that was the smoothest Linux install I’ve ever had. So having a distro tuned to the hardware really does go a long way!
- Eduard 3y ago> But getting everything right is still an hour or better process, post-install, in 2024. If you mean Linux, "a week or better" is a more realistic, yet still optimistic estimate to get "everything right". Until the next odd regressions come in during a follow-up update.
- AshamedCaptain 3y ago> Linux is not accessible to the average non-technical user at all. The moment one thing goes wrong, they’re done. How is this different from Windows, macOS or any other operating system these days exactly? It's not like things don't go wrong there...
- DANmode 3y ago> when it comes to everything “just working”, it’s hard to beat. You've never had updates bork your Windows machine, its drivers etc a few hours before an important meeting, I see!
- tsss 3y agoNo, but I've had at least ten counts of apt gimping itself somehow during an update. Who here isn't intimately familiar with > Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock
- Sakos 3y agoI've had the same issue with Linux. It's far from immune. I've also generally found it easier to recover a borked Windows install than a Linux one.
- soraminazuki 3y agoI never had that issue with NixOS.
- Almondsetat 3y agoIt's always interesting to see people complain about linux installation without mentioning the distro chosen and what they did.
- pjmlp 3y agoUbuntu mostly, and I have plenty of experience with Linux distros since Slackware 2.0 in 1995, so no need for the typical answer that I am holding it wrong, once upon a time I jumped across distros on regular basis.
- Almondsetat 3y agoIf you have hardware that has linux support then everything should work at install time or after install. Ubuntu also has a dedicated program to show you the available proprietary drivers you might want to use. Unless you your hardware is so new that it requires the very latest kernel then you should be golden.
- pjmlp 3y agoThanks for the typical Linux forum reply, not even mentioning that I have Linux experience since 1995 was enough to avoid it.
- Almondsetat 3y agoAvoiding providing details is what gets you the standard Linux forum reply. Generic complaints foster generic replies
- pjmlp 3y agoThis is going the Slashdot way, thanks for bringing up some nostalgia back.
- olddustytrail 3y ago
- ponorin 3y agoI've tried installing Windows 10 to my old ("old" as in Ryzen 2000 series) HP laptop so that I can give it out, and it took forever to install all the updates. Windows Update sucks even when you give permission to do whatever it wants; super slow, doesn't know what to prioritise, and unable to just jump to the newest release. And even then it missed some drivers, especially the fingerprint sensor, so to this day Windows Hello still doesn't work. Remember this device originally shipped with Windows. I can install Fedora Linux on my Surface Go with my eyes closed, barely touching the keyboard. Everything that is supported works out of the box and it doesn't take a day and a half.
- hypercube33 3y agoThat's not exactly fair. hp flops on its face with the software realm (drivers, firmware) and deploying windows to any is a nightmare of missing drivers. The surface is more constrained to specific hardware so I think any operating system would be easy to kick to it much like a Thinkpad.
- AshamedCaptain 3y agoNo, it's not. There's a known bug where the Surface will not turn on/off the IR camera during the login process, resulting in either a "can't turn on camera, please enter PIN" message or worse: leaving the IR camera on after login significantly reducing its lifetime (it gets hot to the touch) and doing god knows what to your eyes. Of course, everyone is quick to blame the manufacturer when it comes to drivers, even when the MS supposedly vets these drivers and even when the manufacturer is MS itself.
- bee_rider 3y agoYou can also find hardware on which Linux will install just fine. We should blame to OS for driver issues or not, either way, but we can’t have a double standard.
- bongodongobob 3y agoWell, if you're using an old Windows 10 installer (my assumption), yeah, that's just how it goes. Like, if you're starting at Win 10 1909, that's like upgrading Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04. Start with an updated installer and you'll have a better time.
- bluedays 3y agoWhenever I read stuff like this it always sounds made up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve installed Linux and I’ve literally never had these issues.
- k8svet 3y ago> still a nightmare of finding drivers, scripts, etc. to get everything setup It reads like the prototypical "I tried Linux a decade ago and keep repeating the experience as if it represents reality today". Hell, 10 years ago was when I met my ex and I can't remember any time during that period that I actually "struggled" with anything other than Nvidia+Wayland before I stopped giving Nvidia money. "finding drivers"? really? For what? I can't remember the last time I've even heard of anyone mentioning compiling a module manually. Running random scripts from the Internet haphazardly trying to "fix" stuff? Yeah, okay, I'm getting a mental image. I can't name the last thing or feature that required any amount of fiddling to get working in Linux. Premium webcams, audio equipment, Chromebooks, Lenovos, ASUS gaming laptops, brand new laptops, 3 USB-C hubs, complicated docked, multi-monitor scenarios. It all has just worked out of box with Linux and NixOS, and requires less maintenance and hand holding than my single Windows dual-boot install.
- louthy 3y agoGreat anecdote, thanks for sharing. But the next time you decide to be a patronising asshole to someone you’ve never met and who very likely has significantly more experience than you, maybe remember this meme [1] Because it describes you completely. The point, in case you completely missed it, is to empathise with the average user. Not me, I’m able to resolve the issues that arise in Linux land (or know when to stop), the average user can very quickly drown. [1] https://media.tenor.com/QIvah8HkvzgAAAAM/the-point-over-your-head.gif https://media.tenor.com/QIvah8HkvzgAAAAM/the-point-over-your...
- fsflover 3y agoThe average user can't fix things on Windows, too.
- 3y ago
- doublepg23 3y agoThe only "just working" OSes are Android and iOS/iPadOS.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago> The only "just working" OSes are Android and iOS/iPadOS. Ha! Try installing a newer version of one of these than the last one the device OEM supported. "Doing this is so difficult that you should abandon all hope and give up immediately" is the same as "just works" in the same way that a car crusher is a good way to secure a computer.
- Eduard 3y agoBetter don't run logcat for like 10 minutes of normal Android usage, or you'll be disappointed what actually is going wrong behind the curtains.
- znpy 3y agoIn my experience nowadays, if you use a mainstream distro life ubuntu or fedora, drivers either are built in/in the repos, or don’t exist at all. Notable exception for those assholes at nVidia. Can’t say the same for windows, i still have to download printer/scanner drivers like it’s 2005.
- timenova 3y agoIt may have been a pain 2001, but it certainly was much better than Windows XP to install around 2006 or 2007, I remember. I had an IBM R51 (many years old at that point), which used to take 2 hours+ to install Windows XP, and it was always very slow to use. I installed a bunch of different Linuxes over the years and it extended the life of the laptop significantly. Most Linux installers already had a good GUI installer on the Live CD at that point.
- m45t3r 3y ago> Most Linux installers already had a good GUI installer on the Live CD at that point. Yes, I think between the end of Windows XP and start of Windows Vista era is interesting because it is by that era when Linux installers got really good (they're full graphical and would be really easy, most times just pressing Next->Next->Finish) while Windows still had its ugly TUI installer. Also, Windows at that time didn't ship with as many drivers as today, and also we didn't have as fast internet and Windows Update still did a poor job for installing drivers from random devices, so most of time after installing Windows you had a pretty poor installation with broken internet/audio/graphics and also possibly weirdly slow (because missing chipset drivers would make the system slow depending on the hardware). While Linux if you had reasonably supported hardware it would just work. Not that this really matters. Installation of a new OS is something that was and still is mostly done by knowledge people, and generally those people can install either Windows or Linux regardless.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hypercube33 3y agoTo be real you're right no one attempted it but it wasn't that hard to get working 20 years ago...to keep it working was the painful part
- wvenable 3y agoI remember installing Linux around that time and getting p0wned immediately upon connecting it to the Internet.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoRed Hat wasn't that bad back in the day. It was three CDs and I was up and running on a pentium pro. Did it look as good as XP? no. It worked though.
- mrweasel 3y ago> Installing Linux 22-years ago, when XP shipped, was hugely painful There was a weird sweet spot for Linux around 2000-2004, very short, where most things just worked. Sure, there was very little gaming, but you could get by just fine and installations was reasonably simple, Redhat, Slackware, Debian, SuSE, Mandrake, Caldera, they all just worked. Sure you had to be a little selective regarding hardware, but it wasn't a massive issue. Interaction with Windows mostly worked without issues, but as Windows XP became more dominate, and especially as Internet Explorer and newer versions of Office took over, things got worse. Still for a few short years, those of us who got into Linux in that tiny windows of time, didn't actually struggle as much as people think. We could do online shopping, word processing, online banking and a little casual gaming. Come 2005 and that was all gone.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoNope, easy Linux installers were common around 2000. RH, Caldera, Lindows, etc. XP wasn’t especially easier to install if you had to partition. It was simply easier because Dell, et al had already installed it. I installed frequently, even had quad boot with OS/2 at one point.
- mmgutz 3y agoI'd say the big shift for companies was Windows 3.1 for Workgroups which displaced Novell Netware. And for the masses, Windows 95 was the "start".