from the it's-2015-and-things-are-easy dept.
I remember a story on the other site years ago when, following the Mojave Experiment, some guys did their own Folgers Test, asking people what they thought of this new (unidentified) UI and most of those folks thought it (KDE) was just more of Redmond's stuff.
Now, there's this story from OpenSource.com.
- Linux is so easy, anyone can install it--even by accident
One day, [...] a user's Windows install went corrupt on her laptop and she accidentally installed Linux. When her laptop couldn't [load the OS] from the hard drive, it automatically booted [to] the network. When she got the PXE install menu, she just hit Enter, installing a Linux desktop with all of our default network security settings and applications.
She then logged into it with her network account and emailed me to say that her Windows had updated and she wanted to know why her Microsoft Office looked so different now and "Where did Outlook go?" We had a good laugh over how Linux is so easy you can install and configure it by accident now, even on a laptop.
Hat tip to Robert Pogson for spotting this. The comment by IT pro oiaohm is, as always, insightful (once you adjust for his dyslexia).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dunbal on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:32PM
Let's see if this [goodbye-microsoft.com] works...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:40PM
My family didn't want to use Linux, so I snuck it on and gave it a Windows makeover. It looks like Windows, but doesn't stink like Windows.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 25 2015, @02:59PM
Did they notice the difference? It would be interesting if you posted your experiences as a follow-up story to this one.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:55PM
At least that is a link to the download page. If you'd gone to the actual download link, you might be strung up here for trying to trick folks into installing systemd.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 25 2015, @12:11AM
I was just going to say, http://files.devuan.org/ [devuan.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:04AM
Get antiX 15 (Core, Base, or Full). [sourceforge.net]
Other non-Sourceforge options [google.com]
Unlike that never-had-a-real-release distro, antiX (pronounced "Antiques") has been around since 2007. [blogspot.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:48AM
You gotta wonder who made the decision to leave a PXE source on the network. And who turn pxe boot on in her bios?
Sounds like TFA author might have had a hand in that. A subtle trap set to do exactly this, or an oversight?
PXE Boot, for the uninitiated will often boot any machine that fails to find a bootable disk (or diskette back in the day) but which has network boot turned on in the bios. [soylentnews.org]
In yee olden times, you had to jumper nic cards to enable PXE boot, but with on-board nics, that went into the bios on many machines. Its probably gone now, or with UEFI bios.
(Here's where You should all run off and check your bios settings to make sure you haven't left that on.)
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:49AM
Ooops, I horked that link: http://www.howtogeek.com/57601/what-is-network-booting-pxe-and-how-can-you-use-it/ [howtogeek.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:41PM
I had almost the same experience!
When I had to reinstall the OS one time, I used a Linux USB by accident. Could barely tell the difference...
Except that HDMI didn't work, the SD card didn't work, single-click mode was flakey, desktop icons kept rearranging on reboot, it kept wanting to connect to Amazon and it was a mystery what would happen if I closed the laptop lid - sleep, crash, nothing. Other than yet, yeah.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:50PM
Closing the lid always works for me. Never any problem.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:57PM
Depending on your wm/de of choice and the hardware you're using, it might be automagically configured correctly or might be a total pain in the ass.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:59PM
Yeah, for me too. Only problem, I don't see anything until I open my eyes again. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:27PM
But what about opening it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:27PM
Who still uses desktop icons? I use mouse gestures to open my frequently used apps, the panel shortcuts for Chrome, Thunderbird, and terminal, and the menu button for everything else. My desktop is clean except for wallpaper and conky.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:08PM
Right? I've grown fond of Gnome Do, which I mapped to a keyboard shortcut. It learns my frequent programs such that when I want to launch something I only have to type the first letter of its name, such as 't' for terminal. Two rapid keystrokes and I'm off to the races. Vimperator as a plugin for FF does the same thing, and brings vi functionality to browsing. It's made an enormous difference to my productivity.
You do similarly with mouse gestures. Not my thing, but you're happy and we're both accommodated.
That's what I love about linux and OSS, total control and customizability so I can maximize my productivity. With Windows and Mac there is a way to do stuff, but it's *their* way, not yours.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Monday October 26 2015, @10:27PM
> I've grown fond of Gnome Do
Yay, another one of us! I use Kupfer [github.io] for the same reasons. I find it faster and more stable (but unfortunately a little bit uglier) than Gnome Do. I can't help but feel like if your launcher doesn't have two (or three) panels, you're pretty much doing it wrong.
> With Windows and Mac there is a way to do stuff, but it's *their* way, not yours.
To be fair, both Gnome Do and Kupfer are clones of the open source Mac app Quicksilver [qsapp.com], though your point about open source is pretty much right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 31 2015, @08:16AM
Fantastic... unless you want to use desktop icons, of course. But then you UI designers know what's best for everyone.
I suppose we all need to get over it and use the most customizable software EVAR and be happy we are not allowed to use dumb icons any more. I'll tell my mom and wife that when they complain that the "computer is broken". Ha ha those lusers, not like us UI heros.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bziman on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:09AM
Where did you find a 90s version of Linux on a bootable USB drive?
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Sunday October 25 2015, @04:34AM
Ah, Ubuntu 15.10 I see.
(ducks under desk)
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by _NSAKEY on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:56PM
This reminds me of a conversation at my local LUG. We compared the current KDE builds to Windows 10, and there's a good amount of similarity in lots of random places. This story isn't all that surprising.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Marco2G on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:09PM
So a user, probably on standardized company hardware, did a prescripted OS install and you think that says ANYTHING about the ease of use of Linux? Yeah... no. The moment the install, to which she probably didn't have to contribute even one keystroke, ended, she ran into trouble. "Where is Outlook and what's with this Office?"
Every OS is easy to install if the hardware is given and the installation is done via enterprise packaging software or even imaging.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:45PM
"Where is Outlook and what's with this Office?"
What's pathetic is that most users are so hooked on very specific software that if they are presented with software that essentially does the same thing but looks different, they get lost. What's worse is that giant companies like Microsoft and Apple push their abusive, malicious proprietary software on children to get them hooked and dependent on it from a very young age. Then you have all these "Computer Science" classes which might as well be called "Microsoft Essentials"; all they do is have people memorize how to use specific software, which isn't education at all.
(Score: 5, Funny) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday October 24 2015, @10:09PM
I'm constantly surprised by how little most people know about Excel. Simple, basic things like cutting and pasting entire columns/rows to rearrange some data is an unknown feature. I've watched people sort data by hand instead of using the sort option.
For Word, it's other irritations. Almost every Word document I get has information that's been lined up with spaces instead of using tabstops. Styles completely escapes most people. Want a 1st level heading? Click on bold, change font size to 18, and type “1. A Section,” completely defeating the outline panel and automatic table of contents generation. Then press enter, click bold again to disable it, change font size back to 10 or 12, and start typing. Remember to press space 4 or 5 times to get an indent when starting a new paragraph!
Want to copy something from that Excel sheet to Word? Print out the Excel sheet, and retype it by hand into Word.
Don't even get me started on users who don't understand why I can import data in one PDF in a matter of minutes and why I quote 10 hours of data entry for another PDF (which is invariably an Excel sheet that's been printed out and then faxed or scanned in).
I wish there were more of these “Microsoft Essentials” classes. The real trouble in my mind is that we're getting “Everyone Can Code!” classes that will likely just show how to use Javascript, glossing over the important topics of how data is represented in a computer. I'll bet they'll gloss over completely what's actually happening during an AJAX call.
Car analogy. If most people avoided knowledge about their cars to the extent they actively try to not learn a single damned thing about computers, it'd go like this.
User: “I'm turning the key and pressing the accelerator, but nothing's happening. Would you take a look?”
Tech: “You're out of gas. Get the can out of the back and pour it into your gas tank, then go to a gas station and fill up.”
User: “Wow, you're so smart!”
5 minutes later.
User: “The same thing is happening again. I twist my key and push the accelerator, but nothing's happening.”
Tech: “Didn't you go to the gas station?”
User: “What's a gassatim?”
Tech: “*sigh*. I'll dispatch roadside service.”
Repeat about 10 more times until they learn how to pump their own gas. Except they never learn how to read the gas gauge and just stick to this “it won't go” means put spare gas from can in tank, then go to a gas station pattern.
50,000 miles later.
User: “This car must just have some gremlins. It's just like before. I twist the key and push the accelerator but nothing happens. I even used the gas can. Would you come take a look?”
Tech: “Your engine block's seized up. When was the last time you checked or changed your oil?”
User: “What's Earl? That sounds technical.”
Tech: “*sigh*. You need to buy a new car.”
User: “Ah, ok. You're so smart! I just don't understand these cars at all!”
Maybe it's just flyover country. Too much inbreeding.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @10:16PM
I wish there were more of these “Microsoft Essentials” classes.
Then you need to get your priorities straight. The educational system is *supposed* to encourage critical thinking skills and encourage people to be good citizens, not abuse people (mostly kids) by having them use proprietary software and teaching them to be corporate drones. A good general education will allow people to figure out problems on their own rather than just memorizing how to do very specific tasks for very specific tools. Proprietary software shouldn't even be allowed in schools, since it, by its very nature, does not allow for education.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 25 2015, @12:20AM
I agree with you. To be a little more specific though, people should be taught computer software concepts, rather than rote tasks. Every piece of software probably has a different set of terms for specific actions, say for example, formatting the margins of a page. Instead of teaching people that in Z application, you click menu-page-settings, you teach them to look for terms that suggest they are about making such changes. Might be "format page" or "page format" or "formatting" or "margins" or whatever. A person who knows how to do that in one specific program and who is rigidly married to that process, is just a meat robot. A person who can self-navigate a new piece of software has valuable skills.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:47AM
I feel my school did an excellent job of encouraging critical thinking skills and to question things that were not right. I even had several professors that would deliberately say wrong things in class, hoping one of us would pick up on it. Extra credit if we did. A classroom-wide admonishment if we did not.
If I were to teach a class, I would do the same thing. I loved trying to catch the professor pulling one of his "fast ones" to see if we were paying attention. For me, it was a game. The professors that were doing this had a lot of lively discussion ignited in the classroom using these antics.
Learning to think that way gave me one helluva leg up on "intelligence" tests. However, I am also extremely prone to give odd answers because I may have an alternate parsing of the test question than the test author has.
Some people call it "thinking outside the box" and "creativity", while others simply call it "wrong" because my reply does not match the answer given in the instructor's guide.
So Microsoft gets their software into schools and gets the kids started on it. Good business plan. Cognitive Dissonance for anything coming later. And be sure to teach the kids not to think... just obey. Do as you are told. Teach to the Test.
Its good for business to provide an incoming stream of obedient drones. Lots of em. Competing for fewer jobs than there are applicants. Economics dictates a wild race to the bottom pay so as not to be the one unemployed. From what I have seen, any spark of independent thinking is dangerous to the management hierarchy, as their authority is apt to be questioned if they can not justify their actions.
A child trained to think for themselves makes a poor blindly obedient corporate drone. They are very apt to be insubordinate when faced with what they interpret as incompetent leadership.
Churches do the same thing. They would really work on parents to get their kids involved in their Sunday Schools and Vacation Bible Schools, where they could get the kids started with the obligations of obedience to the Church. If you can get your thing into people first, anything else coming in then has to displace that which is already there. Look how long America has stayed on this "United States Customary Units" measurement system, while the rest of the world is running a far more elegant Metric system.
I have had a tagline for years that I took straight from the Bible which I use to justify my questioning of what I have been simply told and expected to accept without evidence of proof... The Bible itself is full of admonitions of "Do not be deceived". If I am indeed a created entity, why would it please my creator for me to be so superstitious and gullible as to accept whatever some man ( known full good and well to be very capable of lying - motivated by personal gain ) tells me?
I will offer another line straight out of the Bible...
"Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." [KJV: Proverbs 22:6]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @06:57AM
Economics dictates a wild race to the bottom pay so as not to be the one unemployed
1 incorrect word there.
What you described is *Capitalism*.
There other economic models.
In a **Socialist** economic system, the workers would vote on whether they wanted a race to the bottom.
Any bets on what they would decide?
My bet: They would decide to NOT try to wring every possible cent out of the system, would NOT overproduce, and would NOT create any bubbles.
If/when their market softened a bit, rather than layoffs, they would choose to shorten the workday for each worker and wait out the market recovery (probably investigating other markets).
N.B. With construction of new housing in the crapper, Mondragon's appliance division actually encountered this situation and the workers of the Mondragon cooperative chose to reassign idled workers to another division, with each worker already at that location working a slightly-reduced schedule.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @11:36PM
You describe capitalism as a wild race to the bottom ... and yet capitalism has the most consistently successful growth and development of all economic systems in the history of mankind, period. Feudalism offers stability, but ossification. Mercantilism offers local growth but not global enrichment. Socialism offers ... well, let's see what you have to say about socialism.
Apparently, socialism is ... any system where the workers get to vote? So you can have a socialist cooperative in a capitalist system? Cool, go forth and start all the cooperatives you want. Socialism in capitalism, the best of both worlds. Of course, you don't exactly detail what happens to the workers who don't belong to a cooperative - do the benevolent cooperatives just let them join in? Let them buy in? What happens to the stakes in the cooperatives?
Please, do offer us detailed and specific outlines of precisely how this system works, it sounds fascinating.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @02:19AM
Capitalism rarely goes more than 7 years without a recession|slump|slowdown.
Every 80 years or so, Capitalism completely flushes the economy down the crapper and at least 20 percent of workers can't find a real job at a living wage.
Those are really shitty metrics for "successful".
I have repeatedly mentioned a place that has NEVER had a worker laid off since it started in 1956.
It's called Mondragon. Look it up.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @03:42AM
So what you're saying is that capitalism, which has actually produced massive growth and measurable elevation in standards of living, sucks compared to some other system ... that is so secret you can't tell us about it? Because sometimes it hits difficulties? I suppose by that measure the car with the best suspension in the world is the one that never drives anywhere - never a bump in its road!
As a matter of fact, I'm familiar with Mondragon, and it turns out that Mondragon thrives (when it thrives - not exactly constant) in a ... wait for it ... capitalist environment. Sure, the workers have a say in how things go down, but they buy and sell under rules similar to everyone else in Spain. So by holding Mondragon up, at best your argument is that a cooperative is a good way of running a company.
Nothing about that supports an assertion that capitalism is unwise, nor that anything else would be an improvement on it.
So, returning to the point at hand: what, precisely (details, please, and lots of them!) are you proposing by way of an alternative? How do you recommend that the world resolve competing claims on resources? How will intermediate products be passed between primary, secondary and tertiary industries? What limits will be placed on individual ownership or control of resources? How will you prevent accumulation of resources which would normally be a normal part of capitalism?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @05:37AM
I'm done with idiots who insist that Socialism is a subset of Capitalism.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @02:15PM
Oooh, me too! Me too!
Uh, does that mean you'll actually answer the questions?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday October 24 2015, @11:18PM
One of my favorites. I mentioned AJAX calls before to a user, and they said they knew I was pulling their leg on that one and just making up shit as I went along. I asked what they meant, and they replied that their computer doesn't run on dish soap. I told them that they were making that up, and we both googled it. It was indeed dish soap. We both learned something that day.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:58AM
Styles completely escapes most people.
This.
An absolute disaster when you finally realized the new employee manually formatted every frikin line in the entire document.
I blame the "reveal codes" mentality of Word Perfect days.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:19PM
I laughed until I cried at this.
I worked at a trust bank once, one of the largest in the world. The division there had a set of 5 Excel files they used to calculate their rich clients' financial footing and formulate investment recommendations for them. They would tabulate the bank balances in one file. Then they'd manually copy & paste that over to a second file, where they put it next to the current net worth of their stock portfolios, which they had tabulated in file 3. And so on. It would take them a week and a half to process one client. I brought all five files together in one in the form of tabs, linked it and automated it with macros and their turnaround time per client shrank to 30 minutes. Yup, rocket science, right? The bankers looked at me and said, "You're, like, a freak of nature."
Yes, it was in flyover country.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 26 2015, @05:39PM
I used a similar anecdote when I was working on my Father-in-Law's computer. As he put it, the difference is that his PC cost him something like $400. Assuming it lasts a few years, that's pretty cheap.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bornagainpenguin on Sunday October 25 2015, @12:59AM
This is because very few people are taught how to use a computer any more compared to how many learn to operated some select few applications they need for their job and then avoid everything to do with a computer thereafter. It is only geeks like us who care enough to learn how to operate these machines enough to even learn that other choices exist and why they might be better suited for the job.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:28AM
>What's pathetic is that most users are so hooked on very specific software that if they are presented with software that essentially does the same thing but looks different, they get lost.
I find this ironic, because "GUIs are more intuitive to use than CLIs".
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:41PM
So a user, probably on standardized company hardware, did a prescripted OS install and you think that says ANYTHING about the ease of use of Linux? Yeah... no.
Yeah... all of those zillions of Windows "prescripted" network installs go just as easy. /s
Here is how you install Windows from a network: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0JKQmq-4Sc [youtube.com] Looks like fun!
Gee, I wonder how the number and ease of Linux network full-installs (which have been available since like 1998) compares to those of Windows network installs.
By the way, have you installed a mainstream Linux distro in the last ten years? Linux is much easier to install than any of it's proprietary counterparts (especially Windows). Linux distro developers have had a lot of time to optimize and polish the install process, because, unlike proprietary OSs, their distros are rarely pre-installed.
Furthermore, since it is open source, it is portable comes in so many forms: live CD/DVD/USB/SD; embedded and SOC install; full desktop install; minimal install for older hardware; phone/mobile install; runs on almost every architecture; and, of course, easily installable (or run live) from a network; etc.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 25 2015, @12:26AM
About four years ago I did an install of Windows 7 into a virtual machine for a specific need, since evaporated. I don't remember a bunch about the process except for the fact that installing Debian or CentOS seemed much easier in comparison.
I don't know why there are still people out there who think that being able to install a linux distro requires more than the most rudimentary skills (insert USB or DVD and basically just accept all defaults -- you do have to pick your timezone and give yourself a username and password, and in some a root password too, but if that is the definition "too hard", then everything about a computer is too hard).
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday October 25 2015, @10:08PM
I don't know why there are still people out there who think that being able to install a linux distro requires more than the most rudimentary skills
I can think of three reasons:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @11:36PM
#1 No optical drive, USB left out of default boot order for security reasons, and the EFI settings screen is made hard to discover in order to to improve "user friendliness" and reduce boot time and "visual clutter".
Windows would have most of these problems, too.
#2 Microsoft is also allowing PC makers to sell PCs whose Secure Boot settings cannot be modified.
Huh? Microsoft is not "allowing" anything -- thankfully, the motherboard makers do their own thing. What you mean to say is that Microsoft is pushing hard to coerce the manufacturers to require secure boot to try and thwart open source OSs.
#3 A lot of hardware still doesn't "just work".
Yes it does. The quantity of hardware that works on Linux/open-source greatly eclipses the quantity of hardware that works on any Windows version. You just found one of the few recent hardware items that has to be reversed engineered.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:44PM
if it happened in 2007 she might have thought "oh thank god they gave up on the bullshit ribbon thing and went back to the old toolbars that i'm used to"
(Score: 2) by sjwt on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:50AM
I think the story here is that the user themselves seemed to think this may have been a shiny new windows 10 install..
Now a massive story would be if this happened months ago, and she had been able to install programs and keep working without realising it's not windows, now that's a lot further down the track still.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:19PM
Is there a moral to this story?
User triggered a company's pre-configured network install of a different OS (that's why it was so easy to install - "she just hit Enter"). User then made vaguely reasonable assumption that it was some weird kind of Windows, probably because she'd never heard of anything else. For all I know that's what she'd call any operating system. And she probably still wants her Outlook back.
Now, if she hadn't called tech support, and had simply got on with her work with no interruption at all, that would be a story.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday October 25 2015, @12:08AM
If the *had* have called tech support, and they had actually managed to get her back up and doing her job within a few minutes, that wouldn't have just been a story, it would have been science fiction!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 25 2015, @02:57PM
The moral of the story seems to me to be how far linux has come in terms of usability and appearance. The retort for years from MS supporters has been, "Hrm well linux might be OK for geeks and computer nerds, but real people who need to do real work like MS. Because. It. Works."
This story suggests that that is passing away, when non-technical users accidentally get linux and don't notice the difference.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:37PM
"We utilize a PXE network install server and a Puppet system that lets us set up a new Linux desktop in less than 10 minutes completely hands-off. We go through growth phases every so often where we suddenly need multiple new desktops deployed, and this automated system saves our staff many hours of work."
The lady didn't "install Linux". It's fair to say that she mistakenly triggered a preconfigured installation which had already been tested by the IT department, and guaranteed to work in her environment, on her hardware.
I love Linux, and I think it's pretty stupid to go the Microsoft route. But, to actually "install" a fresh version of Linux requires a little thought. A successful install requires some basic knowledge about your environment and your hardware. I have no sympathy or empathy with her for the missing Outlook, or any other applications she might have looked for. But, Linux isn't quite THAT EASY to install.
Let me point out that I'm a distro hopper at heart. I frequently install new versions of various distros. Installation is easier by orders of magnitude than it was ten, fifteen years ago, but it still requires a little knowledge.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:52PM
A successful install requires some basic knowledge about your environment and your hardware
Does it really? It's been years since I last installed a desktop linux from scratch (like in the article I built a PXE and iso based deployment server for our company back in 2006, had about 2200 installs off it plus the non-intranet connected machines) but I don't recall being asked much more than naming the machine.
Got a new SSD arriving this week and finally decided to move my laptop off ubuntu 10.04, so I guess we'll find out then.
In comparrison I've attempted to install windows 7, server 2008 and server 2012 in the last 4 months (Instaling CasparCG on the windows 7 machine), had major problems in all cases, had to call in an expert who also failed with 2k12. In the windows 7 case I had to go hunting for "drivers" to get the hardware installed. WTF?
(Score: 2) by sjwt on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:47AM
I had windows 10 fail twice to install on a SSD and then work fine on the 3rd attempt,
who knows..
I've seen some crazy linux stuff, crazy MS stuff, crazy Apple stuff, crazy Macintosh stuff, Crazy Tandy Stuff, Crazy Commodore stuff.. I didn't get to use enough Amegas to see their crazy stuff.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 25 2015, @04:31AM
Well - things are at the point that you can boot to a LiveCD, and have a working network, all of your drives are discovered, and the correct video driver put to use. Everything "just works". The installers naturally use the information on your hardware that was discovered by the LiveCD. And, in my experience, the installation _almost_always_works_ without further tweaking. That is, you will generally get the Windows user's experience that it "works out of the box".
Sometimes, things don't work after all. Then you need to know what your video card is, or your wireless/WIFI card or your hard drives, or whatever.
I hope I'm making it clear.
Of course, even when you do get a system that "just works" on a fresh install, most of us are going to start tweaking on it anyway. One of us is going to scream, "NOT ENOUGH SECURITY!" while others whine, "This security is just so inconvenient." Another person insists that everything is just to slow, so he starts tweaking the file system, and on and on it goes.
SystemD put something of a crimp into installations. A lot of what I knew about Linux didn't work exactly the same anymore
Long story short, a know-nothing can still find it a very daunting experience to install Linux, especially if his hardware isn't supported by the distro maintainer. An experienced Linux user can still run into snags.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:05PM
So Linux usually just works, otherwise you need to know your hardware
Windows NEVER just works, you always need to know your hardware. And the right place to get drivers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:54PM
Yes, drivers for Linux are pretty much known today, and ship with the distro. Linux is vastly superior to Windows in that respect. Except, when it doesn't work. For instance, I bought a "gaming" keyboard. No drivers. Some keys don't work, and the keymapping is messed up. So, I go searching, and only one guy on the entire internet has anything that resembles my keyboard. It's not my keyboard exactly, but it resembles mine. Attempt to install, it doesn't work straight up. Go back and read his documentation, and it looks like I might make it work. Fiddle around with it for awhile, almost give up, take one more crack at it, and WHOO-HOOO! It works!
Azio keyboard . . . http://swoogan.blogspot.com/2014/09/azio-l70-keyboard-linux-driver.html [blogspot.com]
So, I have one bit of hardware for which I had to work. Compare that to my first ten or twenty attempts to install Linux, during which I logged failure after failure.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:39PM
Is she hot?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:44PM
no, just bothered.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:00PM
Sometimes its not so simple.
(Note: my other desktop installed mint just fine with no issues and has worked great for over a year. Both are using Nvidia cards driving and the same monitors. I've never had anywhere near this much trouble with Linux before)
So I'm on my 5th reinstall on Linux mint on my new desktop over the last week. (I am unwilling to use Ubuntu after the whole local search ads mess, but I want good Steam support, so Mint is a great choice)
First two installs were not bootable because the drive I'm installing to is only UEFI bootable (SAMSUNG SM951 M.2), and the installer doesn't even show UEFI as an option at install time, it just seems to use what ever mechanism was used to boot the installer (which didn't use UEFI by default). That was fun to sort out, and I learned some useful stuff.
3rd install was great (Once I got the legacy options setup in my bios so it could modeset properly so I could get my drivers installed). I had everything setup and working: I was happily gaming with steam. The next day (when it was restarted) it fails to start the X server, but reports no errors (just successfully exiting with code 0), and corrupts the error screen with some boot status text printing from the terminal. X would start from the terminal, but a lot of stuff was broken (no sound, no shutdown button, chrome didn't work). I tried some recommended fixes, but I broke it worse.
I went for a 4th install with a better partition scheme (separate home and data partitions I could keep) in-case I had to reinstall again. Again X broke in the same way once I got everything installed. This time I tried Xorg -configure, but that seg faulted (Lots of other people apparently had this happen and I didn't see any solutions). Further attempts to recover broke the system further. X seemed to not work if I had both my monitors plugged in after rebooting and installing some stuff, but by the time I determined this, my system was already in a pretty bad state (my desktop environment crashed on startup).
Install 5: this install was really easy since I have my home and data partitions preserved and a list of commands same to install all my software now. It's downloading updates now. I wonder if it will break when I connect my other monitor. Perhaps I can actually manage to debug it this time.
Install 4 had extra issues: I installed Remmina for RDP, but I used the version for the Mint packages. It was too old and didn't support gateway servers. I removed it and installed the correct newer one, but when I ran it, it still ran the old one. WTF. I tried several apt purges which did remove it and various re-installs but it kept running the old one. In the end rebooting managed to escape the zombie version. How can that even happen...
Also, the Mint installer's verify package contents option fails to display to the screen with my hardware, just a black screen. One of my other computers ran it fine though. Great. I blame Nvidia.
Next up is getting file sharing working for linux windows and mac, then setting up backups, then getting it all working as a FreeBSD duel boot (which is why I got Nvidia hardware despite my dislike of them: they have official FreeBSD drivers). Maybe I'll throw on Windows7 VM on it too: but no hardware bootable windows: I promised myself I wouldn't do that anymore. I wish escaping Windows was at easy as listed in the article for me. Regardless of difficulty though, I will escape Windows: there isn't a choice anymore.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:09PM
How'd her Windows install go "corrupt"?
She's the type of person who uses Outlook for e-mail, so what could she have done that screwed up her boot sector to the point that Windows wouldn't even try to load its "Windows was improperly shut down, please choose an option" menu? If the hard drive had actually gone bad, she wouldn't have been able to "install Linux".
And there is a terrific distinction between KDE (even plasma5) and every Windows desktop ever. Even my 99.9% tech illiterate parents know that my KDE desktop isn't a standard Windows desktop.
This whole story seems like something someone made up on reddit or 4chan. It just doesn't work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:13PM
...and who set up and WHY did they set up PXE to boot an automated installer for some Linux desktop distro?
I could understand them doing some server type deal if I was properly convinced, but something with KDE? Nah...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:44PM
And windows can do the *SAME* *EXACT* *THING* https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.07.desktopfiles.aspx [microsoft.com] It has for years.
What a *non* story. Some IT dept setup PXE to setup linux with a very hands off approach. Uh huh. Yeah aaaaaaaaand?
Sure it is pretty cool when it works. My company uses it to do windows installs. With a menu in front of it to 'pick your laptop'.
Sounds more like 'incompetent IT dept setup windows for auto boot in a windows shop'. So yeah she was 'ok' for a bit. The software she needed was not there and it burned out 2-3 days of your time.
(Score: 2) by sjwt on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:43AM
With all the media coverage about windows 10 downloading and updating automatically, this is one of those times i'd call on the side of belief..
"Hey, Windows 10 just updated to my computer, and I don't know how to do anything!!!"
(Score: 1) by Bogsnoticus on Monday October 26 2015, @04:37AM
I've had more than one user call up and complain their system wont boot. Diagnosis showed there was no longer a Windows directory. The user had deleted to "get more hard drive".
I also have worked for a few firms where they have it defaulted to PXE in case of no HDD, so they can easily perform a remote rebuild without having to send a tech to the site.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:39PM
A few years ago, I edited a copy of knoppix for network booting. Took me about
The knoppix initrd was pretty easy to follow, and it was easy to find where to edit -- just looked for everything related to mounting the cdrom, ripped it out, and replaced it with some stuff to look for an nfs mountpoint instead.
Though fun, it was a lot of work for little benefit (do I really want a laptop, that's 110 % reliant upon a nearby desktop running the trinity of network boot daemons, in order to function; just for the geek points ? ), and I don't think I'll ever do it again.
In comparison, network booting into a fedora or debian installer, is super easy to set up.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:19PM
If there's one thing Linux does best, its network booting and deployment.
At a previous employer, I had to experiment and setup Windows Deployment Services, which requires a lot of fiddling and pain to get right. While its relatively easy to get a standard interactive install going, to automate it, you have to create a special unattend.xml which controls the first stage of the installation, including partitioning, and other settings. Then you have to create a OOBE_unattend.xml file for the first boot. To create these files requires using a pain in the ass utility which loads a WMI file from WDS or from CD (copying it) to generate a catalog, then use an interface that's poorly documented and fiddly to insert all the correct settings in the correct stage, and the correct point for it to all "work". This can take hours to just get a basic unattend setup going, let alone automatic AD joining, and similar pain.
Image customization still requires the usual sysprep and imagex dance, and seems to take 1-2 hours just to capture a 5 GiB HDD image.
All I can say is its better that RIS which WDS replaced. RIS basically copied everything to the local HDD and then installed it from there as the Windows kernel of the era couldn't handle ramdisks or non-local root drives. (that feature was added in Windows PE which was based off XP).
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by sjwt on Sunday October 25 2015, @02:19AM
So how did this beacon of wonder go when she updated her video card or wanted to install a new program?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @09:21AM
So how did this beacon of wonder go when she updated her video card or wanted to install a new program?
I went much smoother than on that popular proprietary legacy operating system...
When you install a new device, it just works. You don't download drivers from where ever because they're already in the kernel. Linux supports a far wider range of hardware than any other OS, from phones to supercomputers.
Installing new software is a breeze, you go to the package manager as always and select what you wish installed and click apply. Done. No wondering about the intarwebs downloading malware laced binaries from total strangers, no sir!
Try it, you'll be amazed.