__/ [Larry Qualig] on Tuesday 20 December 2005 15:51 \__
> rapskat wrote:
>> On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:36:49 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>
>> > This proves (yet again) that Windows has suffers from serious issues
>> > pertaining to dependencies. Y'all try to say it in the context of Linux.
>> > This doesn't only apply to AV software that blocks ports. The main
>> > problem is that Windows will /never/ spew out a warning or an error
>> > message. It will just leave you confused for many hours until you wipe
>> > or $hip over to a techni$ian.
>>
>> You certainly know that I am not a lover of Windows by any means, but in
>> this case it's not Windows per se that's the cause of the problem. Rather
>> it is the fact that Dell systems come pre-loaded from the vendor with
>> spyware and adware. It's sickening that you can buy a top of the line
>> smoking system just to see it perform like crap right at first bootup from
>> all the popups, ads, buy this now, and registration crap that they bloat
>> their images with.
I have wiped 2 Dell machines to have Linux installed on them (work and the
University; I don't get to choose the vendor). The hardware seems decent
as it hasn't disappointed me for years; the O/$ is no problem either. My
statement was pinpointing something else however.
The problem with Windows is that it is not verbose. This makes it very ar-
duous to fix once things go wrong. My teenage years have led me to that
conclusion and I still see the same with XP. Troubleshooting -> Help
files; Device manager -> Device working properly. But it ain't! Query in
DOS mode -> How does the user even express him/herself? What tools are
available?
The operating was engineered to become too optimistic. No vandalism is as-
sumed. No aggressive advertisers can be combatted. No conflicting modules
can be detected and, moreover, problems are difficult to resolve. That, in
fact, is why the "wipe and re-install" is frequently the off-the-sleeve
elixir to the Windows user. To many others, it is time-consuming and unac-
ceptable.
> I don't know what your average Joe consumer does (or can do) about this
> but myself and people I work with usually reformat their Dell systems
> and reinstall the OS from start. The last system I bought from Dell (a
> laptop) was a joke when it arrived. It had all sorts of demos and
> trial-versions of software installed on it. I'm sure that Dell gets
> paid to install AOL and all that other stuff which helps subsidize the
> unit and keep the price down.
>
> But out of the box the system is basically unusable. The 2nd time I
> powered up the unit pop-ups started appearing tellling me that my
> 30-day trial will soon expire and that I can buy/register some piece of
> crapware now. Fortunately I'm able to reinstall an OS but for the
> average Joe getting this sort of system has got to suck pretty bad.
This becomes somewhat of problem when you deal with a laptop. There are
certain drivers that take time to install, so if you choose to install
from scratch, you'd wind up scratching your head. Compaq had a similar ap-
proach, namely shipping an O/S distribution with tons of utterly unneces-
sary junk on top of it (oh, and drivers!).
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Roughly 2% of your keyboard is O/S-specific
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
4:40pm up 9 days 23:51, 6 users, load average: 0.30, 0.28, 0.25
http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms
|
|
