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Windows XP installation process seemed something similar. I remember I was blown away the first time I installed from an ubuntu live cd.
by timetraveller26 3y ago
Windows XP installation process seemed something similar.
I remember I was blown away the first time I installed from an ubuntu live cd.
- kccqzy 3y agoI was blown away when I installed Ubuntu via Wubi. (It wasn't my first time installing Ubuntu, and my first time was much more traditional.)
- o11c 3y agoI installed from a couple of graphical CDs around 2008 (... how did I even burn that first CD?) ... then shortly after that Linux finally made full-resolution TTYs work by default and I used text mode thereafter. Usually via `mini.iso` (since I install rarely, start with a small base system, and like not starting with out-of-date packages). I'm trying not to have a panic attack that "Windows 98" unambiguously counts as retrocomputing now though.
- pjerem 3y ago> I'm trying not to have a panic attack that "Windows 98" unambiguously counts as retrocomputing now though. Oh you can totally go up to Windows XP for this denomination. Some would argue you may even go to 7. Windows 10 is 9-10 years old and nobody ever cared or will ever be nostalgic about Windows 8 which is 12 years old so it’s not unreasonable to consider anything before that, "Retro".
- danirod 3y ago> Some would argue you may even go to 7. This is highly subjective, but I'd consider Windows 7 as retro at this point. As of 2024, Windows 7 is 14 years old. Windows 95, for instance, was already 14 years old the year when Windows 7 was released (2009). And Windows 95 was already seen as "retro" by that time.
- adrianmsmith 3y agoI guess it's more than Windows 7 and Windows 10/11 share a lot in common in terms of their architecture, which programs run on them etc. I am typing this on Windows 7 and lots of programs e.g. utorrent still produce new versions which run fine on Windows 7, so I'm thinking many of the older Windows APIs are still in use and haven't changed much. Whereas Windows 95 vs Windows 7 are very different architecturally with one being clearly superior to the other, and also Windows 95 was at the start of its series and got more mature with Windows 98 etc. and Windows 7 was already mature.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ThunderSizzle 3y agoI really can't believe Windows 10 is 10 years old and is still a heaping pile of trash. I'm so glad I switched to Mint 3 years ago after being pissed at Windows 10 for 3 years. The only thing keeping me on Windows really was gaming, and all of that works perfectly for me thanks to Steam.
- mavamaarten 3y agoIs it really that bad? It doesn't have my preference either, but I've never really understood why people think it's that bad. Especially with Windows 11, it's honestly a nice visual improvement over 10 imo. The fact that it's spyware is a different discussion, I'm mainly talking about usability and stability here.
- toyg 3y agoI still use 10 every day. I think detractors are mostly annoyed that its terminal facilities are still subpar out of the box (even with Windows Terminal).
- MisterTea 3y ago> I think detractors are mostly annoyed that its terminal facilities are still subpar out of the box (even with Windows Terminal). All the spyware, forced updates and restarts causing loss of work forcing you to wrestle your own computer into submission via tweaking a plethora of knobs and levers that MS subverts with updates. But terminals...
- toyg 3y agoI restart once a month, when compulsory updates are rolled out, and it's hardly a sacrifice if user programs are half-decent (i.e. sessions are restored, something every good browser or editor can do these days). As for spyware and subverted preferences, Apple does it worse; and many Linux updates will carelessly break DE stuff too... so it's all much of a muchness to me.
- 3y ago
- sirwhinesalot 3y agoI know a guy who actually liked all the Metro nonsense. I'm sure he's nostalgic about Windows 8 these days. Not me though.
- wizzwizz4 3y agoThe folk over at Retrocomputing Stack Exchange disagree: https://retrocomputing.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1155/278 https://retrocomputing.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1155/278 > For one, it still has about half a percent desktop share (60+% in Armenia). While this may sound small, it's still a huge number of everyday users — not to mention all the appliances, kiosks and other control systems running XP. Per Statcounter, XP makes up 0.39% of desktop Windows machines now, which is more than Windows 8. I'm not sure what to conclude from that.
- jasomill 3y agoWindows 8.1 and 10 were free upgrades from 8 with identical system requirements and similar performance on supported hardware. Windows Vista was a paid upgrade from XP with increased system requirements and poor performance on low-end supported hardware.
- rahkiin 3y agoYou might have ordered the CD! It was possible to order free installation disks of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and more
- canadianfella 3y ago[dead]
- none_to_remain 3y agoI was blown away when the Windows XP installation process required me to find a 3.5" floppy for storage drivers.
- p_l 3y agoBecause on PC, the FDC is probably the only storage component you could be sure to address at one time.
- sambazi 3y agobecause early pc's often completely ran of floppy disks as hdd's were expensive
- Bene592 3y agoXP wasn't that early. IDE worked out of the box. But if you had a RAID setup or something else that needed a driver (early SATA?) you could load the driver there
- orthoxerox 3y agoBy the time XP was released no one ran their systems off floppies. A floppy was still the most common removable medium, though.
- bonton89 3y agoThis process was super cumbersome since floppy disks were well on the way out even when XP was introduced and by the end of its life they were gone. Floppy is the only universal driver the installer can count of having for storage media, besides the media it installing itself. I always thought it would be smarter if this process allowed you to insert a CD temporarily in the same drive keeping the installer in memory.
- paledot 3y agoWindows XP required a minimum of 64 MB of memory. The installer must not only fit in that space, it must be able to run at the same time. Not an impossibility, but a much taller order than running the same/a previous version of the OS directly off the disk. I have definitely used OS installers that allowed/required CD swaps, though. Maybe Ubuntu at one point? Now that's a slick setup process. Opening Firefox to read the orange site while your OS installs on the same computer is a great trick.
- exe34 3y agoI was blown away when I installed OS X from the internet directly without downloading it and copying to a usb/cd. Next time I was blown away with installs was when I unbricked my pixel phone from Chrome!
- Dwedit 3y agoI thought Windows XP's installation process looked just like Windows 2000's? Text mode display and everything, but running the Windows NT kernel.
- kuschku 3y agoIt used text mode with NT for the first part, then followed up with a Win 9x and Win XP based step 2 and 3 that were themed like the Win XP login screen. Really neat tbh.
- mkup 3y agoThere's no Win 9x phase in Win XP setup, of course. :) There's optional DOS phase, then text-mode phase (running NT kernel under the hood, but UI is in VGA text mode), and then finally GUI phase of the setup.
- apexalpha 3y agoMy start of my entire interest in IT can essentially be pinpointed to receiving that red CD.
- _thisdot 3y agoI was 12 and they sent a CD to me in India from the US for free! They have since discontinued the program. But meant a lot to me as a kid