Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

w2k vs. linux

Well, it's nice being back at the ol' keyboard again. I finally got that upgrade going (kept it very cheap with a 1GHz duron with a board that supports 133MHz SDRAM). It was a good time, excepting the fact that I couldn't jimmy-rig my existing win98 installation to work with it. I purchased a $65 w2k license from my employer (so if I decided not to keep it, I could return it). Then I tried linux for a day and w2k for a day.

It was MUCH easier to install linux and get it going than it was windows. Linux went on with no quibble, while windows 2000 kept telling me my hard drive was bad. After a lot of trouble, I found the problem was bios settings. Even selecting "fail saife defaults," my mobo left UDMA to auto. Disabling that got me a little further with the install. Then it would hang at the point right after install when it's saving settings. After even more B.S., I found out that removing the w2k cd-rom let it finish with no more trouble. Then time for the video drivers. I downloaded DirectX 8.1 before installing my video drivers. Unfortunately, ATI's drivers only install properly on 8.0a. Hunting that one down was a rare treat. Finding dx8.0a was even more special. Of course, once I found it, I also found out that you can't uninstall DirectX once it's installed. Once more down the ol' reformat/reinstall chute.

What may come as a little more surprising is the fact that I decided in 2k over linux. Ubiquity.

I feel dirty.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Austin, TX USA
Posts: 178

I feel your pain... Dealing with Microsoft is like using gasoline engines: it is inefficient, dirty and is destroying the world, but the alternatives just aren't up to speed.

-sigh-

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ThirdMan

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 6

quote:

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Originally posted by ThirdMan
I feel your pain... Dealing with Microsoft is like using gasoline engines: it is inefficient, dirty and is destroying the world, but the alternatives just aren't up to speed.

-sigh-

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Thats the best anaology I've heard concerning this subject. Its exactly true. Keeping with the car theme the best thing you can do is to run a hybrid...use the cleaner, more efficient tool when you need it and switch to the gasoline engine when its best to do so.