OT: Windows is too expensive

AgentZero · #1 March 7th, 2007, 04:38 AM

Heh, sorry about the confusion, Geo. When I saw the disclaimer I jumped to the conclusion that they wanted receipts before they'd sell you an OEM copy, since nowhere does it say anything about a Vista upgrade. Thank goodness we have Fyron around to slap Newegg CS about and find out what they're really on about.

Baron Munchausen · #2 March 8th, 2007, 05:00 PM

Quote:

AgentZero said:
Heh, sorry about the confusion, Geo. When I saw the disclaimer I jumped to the conclusion that they wanted receipts before they'd sell you an OEM copy, since nowhere does it say anything about a Vista upgrade. Thank goodness we have Fyron around to slap Newegg CS about and find out what they're really on about.

Now if he'd just slap MS around and make them give us better license terms...

geoschmo · #3 March 8th, 2007, 10:19 PM

Well, I will say this about Linux. It may be that there are comparable programs out there for everyhting I need, but it's not always the easiest thing to get them loaded and running.

I sure am spoiled by Windows. You find a program, install it and it runs. I'm a moderatly techie individual and I'm findign it diffecult to get thigs setup in Ubuntu. Everything's got six lines of commands you have to type into the command line terminal, and even then maybe it won't work. I've been working on getting a wireless adapter setup for a few hours now and it's just not flying. I've found instructions in several places on the web, all of them with minor differences, and none of them seem to work.

I know the same thing would happen if I tried to plug non-supported hardware with windows, but it's still frusterating. The biggest problem I seem to be running into is there is just so much information out there it's tough to filter out those that know what they are talking about.

Fyron · #4 March 8th, 2007, 10:54 PM

For software installation, just use Synaptics. Its often as easy as Windows, cause you can get almost all software you'd need in one integrated package management application.

Network configuration is loads of fun...

Baron Munchausen · #5 March 8th, 2007, 11:34 PM

That has been the standing complaint about Linux, recognized even by the geeks who are boosting it, for some years now. Linux is still not being adopted, despite being better at nearly everything. Linux has native security and has had for years. Windows is still a bug-riddled trojan that lets all the organized crime syndicates who have now entered into cyber crime do whatever they please with your machine. Apache on Linux is vastly more secure and more stable as a web server than Windows and IIS, and it can carry a much heavier load on the same hardware. Open Office has almost every single feature that MS Office has, and it is more backwards compatible than Office itself -- yes, a third party program is better at loading old Word or Excel files than brand-name MS Office! Games is where Windows still has the undisputed advantage. Everyone has gotten used to using Direct-X and it's hard to make the effort to independently learn how to program graphical hardware. But because it's still so hard to use -- the learning curve is just too steep for anyone but a tech geek -- almost no but but the geeks are using it. So it remains a niche product or a server OS at best while Windows continues to rule the desktop.

Will · #6 March 8th, 2007, 11:52 PM

For getting the wireless adapter to work, your best bet is probably to do a walkthrough on installing ndiswrapper, and wrapping the windows driver that came with the wireless card. There are a few wireless devices that are part of the kernel that will Just Work, but for the most part you need to get the Windows driver loaded into Linux.

geoschmo · #7 March 9th, 2007, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Will said:
For getting the wireless adapter to work, your best bet is probably to do a walkthrough on installing ndiswrapper, and wrapping the windows driver that came with the wireless card. There are a few wireless devices that are part of the kernel that will Just Work, but for the most part you need to get the Windows driver loaded into Linux.

That sounds exactly like what I did, but it doesn't seem to see the adapter. I installed the driver, but I don't see where to go to get it to connect to my wireless network.