Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 00:05:04 +1030 From: Malcolm Kay <malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, danial_thom@yahoo.com Cc: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, Miguel Saturnino <mags@oniduo.pt>, Don Hinton <don.hinton@vanderbilt.edu> Subject: Re: BSD Question's. Message-ID: <200512280005.05165.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> In-Reply-To: <20051225143322.86896.qmail@web33313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20051225143322.86896.qmail@web33313.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 01:03 am, Danial Thom wrote: > --- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> > > wrote: > > On 2005-12-24 14:01, Danial Thom > > > > <danial_thom@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > Don Hinton <don.hinton@vanderbilt.edu> wrote: > > > > For me, FreeBSD is about twice as fast/easy > > > > to install/configure, > > > > > > and infinitely cheaper. > > > > > > Considering that WinXP usually comes on the > > > > computer, I don't see how > > > > > "installing and configuring FreeBSD" can be > > > > easier than having to do > > > > > nothing at all? > > > > Windows XP comes preinstalled, yes. Not > > "preconfigured" too. It so > > happens that configuring a Windows XP system to > > match one's preferences > > has the potential to: > > > > a) Screw the machine up so completely and > > utterly that a reinstall > > is required. > > b) Take a lot of time. A huge lot of time, > > because of all the > > different 'driver' installation > > processes. I have installed numerous sytems including various versions of MS-DOS and Windows, OS/2, OS/9, Linux distributions and large range of FreeBSD releases. There have been some difficulties from time to time but with one exception these all yielded to study+reason. The one exception was an XP diagnostic build on which I eventually admitted defeat. > > Ate you claiming that someone not familiar with > how to configure FreeBSD can't screw it up beyond > usefulness? I can point you at about 10% of my > customers who've spent weeks just trying to > compile a kernel and get basic networking > working, much less a desktop with X. > I would claim that XP is quite capable of screwing up its system without any real help from the user. I installed a HP all-in-one scanner-plotter on my a NEC laptop running XP professional and this worked fairly well until HP suggested I should update the software. Thereafter some minor annoyances/bugs appeared. I decided that I should go back to the original so I activated the system unistall utility on the HP software. After partly removing the software the utility reported errors; that it could not complete the uninstall. Nor would the original installation rerun because it thought it was already there. So now I don't have access to the all-in-one. Removing all the directories on the machine identified as from HP and registry entries in identified as HP allowed some reintallation to proceed but it is incomplete and doesn't run. I have never experienced this sort of lockout on a FreeBSD system. It is looking as though I will need to do a completely new XP installation -- which I am not looking forward to. It has been said before Windows is OK until something goes wrong; but then it is mostly unfixable. Malcolm Kay
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