Erg...

[altivo]

(That's the answer to the question, "What sound does a dyin' centimeter make?")

So of course now that the Linux system is in place and running smoothly (fewer complaints this week than in a typical day of the old system) I get to reclaim the three Optiplex GX280's that were released from service by this change. First one goes to our staffer who does a lot of graphic layouts for posters, announcements, etc.

So of course I have to put Windows back on. It still has WinXP but it was so much hacked up to make it stable in the gaff of constant break-through attempts by teen users that it's easier to wipe and reinstall. Fortunately, we do have the CDs for the process, the restore discs that came with each machine. Except... format of HD fails. Pull out the Maxtor diagnostic diskette, and yup, drive is on the way out. So set that one aside for a warranty replacement next week.

The second one formats OK and installs. Takes way too long doing it. Well, I figure, better apply updates. OMG, two hours and five reboots later, it is still finding more critical updates to download. Finally it announces that we need SP2, so I let that run. 75MB download and then the thing must verify and install. That took an hour, but I can't imagine what dialup users do. One more round of patches after that and it finally declared itself up to date, at least for today. So then I put MS-Office on it, for good measure. That took another hour to run. I could have installed three Linux boxes in the time it took to get that far, and then I still needed to put Norton Antivirus on. While that was installing, I just happened to notice that the virus fingerprint data now takes up almost 12MB in itself. Gah. So we should go back to DOS and 5Meg hard drives. All those viruses wouldn't even be able to run there, let alone fit on the hard disk.

It took from 11 am to almost 5 pm to get that far. This is a fast machine, a P4 @ 2.8GHz, with a GB of RAM and 80GB SATA drive.

Comments

[calydor.livejournal.com]

SP2 used to be a 230 MB download when it was released; I'm assuming it was broken up into several smaller bits due to a flood of complaints. What dialup users do and did?

Dialup-User bends over and says, "Oh yes, fuck me hard."

That's kinda how it goes. Unfortunately, trying to install Linux gave me much the same experience. For some inane reason X is not included on the first three Debian discs (the ones with the most commonly used programs), is not installed when you specify the primary use of the computer as desktop, and even after a 250 MB download with apt-get (getting KDE in the vain hope it'd bring X by default, since apt-get wouldn't get X no matter what I tried calling it) I was -still- left without X.

So the problem exists everywhere.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Distributions vary, and I know nothing about Debian. Slackware comes in two ISO files that create two CDs. You can tell it to do a "default" installation and you'll get everything, including X and KDE. Playing with the installation settings does take some understanding of how various packages interrelate, though. I think the thing that gives most novices trouble is not getting installed, it's setting up lilo or grub to make a system boot from the HD, especially if they are going for a dual boot with Windows still available.

A full Slackware or Fedora install on a current P4 machine takes about an hour and does not require downloading hundreds of megabytes of patches. For Slackware, you may need to know the actual horizontal and vertical rates for your monitor, which is not a familiar question for most people. It will just ask you what they are. Most distributions just try to guess and usually get it within a working range. On the other hand, Windows has trouble with that too. I have seen countless Windows installations where the monitor image is skewed way to the left or right and has to be compensated by adjusting the monitor controls way out of range.

For me the nuisance with Linux installs has always been getting the sound system working. Too many conflicting designs, too many proprietary hardware secrets, too many manufacturers who refuse to support anything but Windows. The other PITA is modems and printers that have no brains of their own and require fat custom drivers that do all the work in the main CPU space. Manufacturers of that junk rarely provide drivers or information for anything but Windows. My Dell came with a cheap internal modem that works that way, but fortunately the modem chip is from Intel and they do provide a Linux-compatible driver for it. No help from Dell on that whatsoever.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm still curious about your Debian complaint. Are you sure it wasn't installed and just not active? As in, you needed to run some configuration program before it would run?

For many years Slackware installed X by default but did not activate it. You had to do that manually. It still comes up in command line mode by default, and you have to put 'telinit 4' into a startup file if you want the system to default to a graphical environment right at login time.

This stuff rises from the differences between the original UNIX philosophy and the Windows way of doing things.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

I did a complete drive search for 'startx', I believe it was, and it was not there. I'm not familiar with it having to be preconfigured like that, other than the oh-so-hated config program, whose name eludes me. It's troublesome just to type, though. Ten characters, first two uppercase, then two numbers (86?) Config. That was how I originally learned about case sensitivity. ;-)

But alas, with the move approaching rapidly, I just don't have time to boot into Linux and try beating it into submission.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, but 'startx' is not necessarily a standard command. It's just a script that checks for various configuration files and then does an xinit. Some distributions have no startx command.

In the original UNIX setting, X was always a client-server setup, with the server (the terminal) being on a remote terminal connected by ethernet to the client (the system on which the applications run.) The original way of getting an Xwindows session going was pretty cumbersome. Graphical logins came next, using a display manager program like xdm that had to know ahead of time which addresses had terminals and should be acquired and a login prompt put up on them. Some distributions still assume that if you want X, you'll be using a graphical login screen and therefore won't need startx. Rather than looking for startx, I'd look for X (upper case) or xinit. Or check for subdirectories of /usr that start with X...

XF86Config is a pain to run more than once, I agree. I prefer to just edit the config file with a text editor. Some distributions have a better, menu-driven configuration script. Just to confuse you further, XFree86 is now maintained by a new group and has been renamed to Xorg. ;P Politics.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Another thing to check: Back in RedHat 5 or thereabouts, users couldn't run XWindows sessions until they were set as X users by root. There was a script that root ran, which created X configuration files and a startx command on a per user basis. Presumably this comes from the idea that graphical resources are costly and not everyone needs to have them available.

I believe in that same version and distribution, root could not run an X session on its own behalf either, because X programs can be security risks if run with root privileges. These two elements taken together could easily give the impression that X was not present on the system, but it was in fact there and just protected from unauthorized use.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Thats why I downloaded and saved all the updates up to date that way they all install bulk from CD. So when setting up friends computers it doesn't take up bandwidth. Thats the main problem with trying to download updates, if you're on a slow connection it'll do that to you.

Plus there's a raft of programs and tweaks I run after any windows installation to guarantee a bug free machine ^.^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I suppose if I were still in the business of doing many Windows installations I'd be doing the same thing. I'd rather not, though. After restoring these three machines to unadulterated XP, I probably won't do another Windows install again for several years. (At least, I hope not.)

In fact, now I'm looking forward to wiping Win2000 from our network servers and replacing it with Slackware. ;p Probably won't happen for a year or two, but I can do it now.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Installing Windows has certainly not become any easier over time. Of course considering how old the latest OS is now, it's not surprising to see a lot of hardware conflicts.

It's sad. But if a machine goes down at work for me, I usually say it'll take me the entire day to re-install if it requires it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I remember when we thought that something that came on FIVE floppy disks was a huge application.

The irritating thing about all this is that most of the applications don't really do their core job any better than those old DOS things did. All the space, energy, and CPU cycles are primarily devoted to making things look cuter.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

And that is indeed the case. When I do use Windows (not by choice anymore) I try to use non-Microsoft applications as they tend to be lighter, faster, more stable, and less frustrating in general. One source of stuff is Tiny Apps which list applications of 1.44 MB or less. That's right, "fits on a floppy" is the size specification.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually I keep thinking of mainframe apps that I worked with back in the 80s that seemed huge and cumbersome (and no doubt were so in terms of the source code involved and the memory swapping constraints in those times) that seem quite sleek and racy compared to a bloated monster like Microsoft Office.

I'd like to see an actual comparison, in number of bytes of machine code or number of lines of source code, between, say, IMS or IDMS and MS-Access.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Too true.

Fortunately there are still programs written just to work well.


Have you ever looked at: http://tinyapps.org/

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I've seen it mentioned from time to time. Sometimes, though, I think the best application for a Windows-infested machine is the application of a finger to the power switch. (Or a low level formatter.)

[corelog.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's about average for a machine like that, if you haven't done your prep beforehand. For example, I could have provided you with a volumized install of WinXP with SP2 preinstalled, slipstreamed by yours truly. :) You'd just need a valid volume license key, which I imagine the library has. Yes, you can use your own key on any volumized install.

In fact, my handy-dandy multi-boot CD does just that, conbining a DOS prompt with DBAN (for wiping disks) and the XPSP2 installation routine.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, I don't have a volume license key, I don't think anyway. I have individual license keys that came with each machine (the ones they put on those license plate stickers with the Windows XP logo and hologram.) I have a multiple license key for Office 2000, I know, because we purchased multiple licensing with a discount through the Gates Foundation, but I don't think we ever did that for XP. I'll have to check. That stuff was (badly) managed by the tech consulting firm they had on retainer and have now released.

But it's a relief to know I wasn't messing up too badly. I've never installed XP before. NT dozens of times, 98SE, and earlier, but never XP. I couldn't believe how long it was taking.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

You are a very very patient man.

Er...hoss.

*Jonathan Swift hits him*

I've been there actually, there /is/ a sense of accomplishment
once its done though.

Good job.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm planning to complicated it horribly by the time I do the third installation. That machine will be for my own use, and I'm going to install Linux as the primary OS. Normally I'd put XP on a dual boot partition since I still have to be able to run a Windows thing now and then. But I've just discovered VMWare so I'm going to try to set up the Windows to run as a guest operating system. Windows on a leash, enclosed in a cage. I rather like that idea.