Re: Dual Booting Rant

Macer wrote:

> I'm sorry but after about ten minutes of reading this newsgroup I
> realized that around 90% of the people here dual boot. Dual booting is

Well, actually - if I really need to run windows nowadays - I run it
encapsulated in a vmplayer session :)

> usually done by someone who just wants to play with an OS. If you are

Disagree. Well, I am no gamer, so double-boot windows for playing is not
mine - but someone with a truckload of legacy windope games might want to
"save investments". However, will said person have enough spare time to
become familiar with linux?

> serious about using Linux/fbsd or any other type of *nix software you
> all really might consider saving some pennies and dimes and buying a
> cheap ass system for $200.
>
And wear out your vga/keyboard/mouse/network connectors, producing a clog
of cables ... or spend another $$ for a kvm switch?

> I am sorry but I am just not a fan of dual booting at all. I could
> possibly understand it if you have EXTREMELY OS specific things that you
> need to do, but if you are a person who writes here complaining that you
> can not see your Windows partitions in Linux.... then just get rid of
> Linux and go out and mow some lawns to make at least a P3/500 (which

Setting up local networking "the microsoft way" even across common soho
routers which tend to block netbios has never been the strongest side of
linux, but unfortunately windows has no nfs support builtin by default.
Samba can be a pin in the a*$ to setup for newbies, in particular when
browsemaster conflicts tend to fool people.
Don't be impatient.

> costs peanuts now). Slap a decent video card in it and you're good.
> There is absolutely no reason anybody should double boot. The ones who
> do are usually the coorperate coffee drinkers who like going into work
> talking about how cool they are because they run an operating system
> other than Windows.
>
These people most of the time are too lazy anyway, and rarely boot
anything but windows. Wasted harddrive space for them.

> Please, just save yourself a headache and just build another computer.
> If you haven't built one before then you really have no reason to
> install Linux on anything. Most machines given out by PC manufacturers
> by default have ONE operating system. Know why? Because they don't want
> to deal with some guy calling up for three hours still asking, "Why
> can't I see the stuff I saved in Linux." Somewhere, some dual booter is

Therefore, almost the first question you receive at the helpline is about
the installed operating system, or if they discover you are talking about
any martian os, they just hang up.

> sending a Dell customer service representative one more step closer to
> suicide with stupid questions about Windows/Linux dual booting. Go on
> IRC and ask someone. Then again about 60% of all people who dual boot
> don't even know what IRC is.
>
And guess, how high is the percentage of the "single-booters" using
windows?

> Sorry for the rant.
*eg*
> If you are just trying to learn how to use Linux... then building a
> computer should be your first step. Then you could at least get a sense
> of how the hardwrae works. Don't just grab your damn Hewlett Packard
> laptop and slap a Redhat (which I also hate) CD in there and rip your
> hard drive apart with partitions so you can dual boot. It is a waste of
> time and takes from the real learning experience.
>
Sounds like a good advice, and it's always helpful to know about how to
change some incompatible part or where to search for drivers/modules or
which ones to compile.

--
vista policy violation: Microsoft optical mouse detected penguin patterns
on mousepad. Partition scan in progress to remove offending
incompatible products. Reactivate MS software.
Linux 2.6.12-mm2 [LinuxCounter#295241,ICQ#4918962]
.

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