Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Linux vs. Windows. Two operating systems go in, only one comes out!
It quickly become apparent that Windows has no package management to speak of. I had to actually go directly to software vendors' websites and manually download, unpack, and install software. In some cases, the packages would come as a RAR file, and there was no unrar to extract the files with. The worst thing though, is that Widows wanted me to reboot it every time I installed something new.
I finally got my hardware to work after four hours of research, downloading, and rebooting. By that time, I was already feeling like a slave to the OS.
Via Hacker News, Branko's Thought Dump: On the state of Windows on the desktop
My friend Gregory is a Windows person who has had his share of problems with Linux. Well Gregory, here's the story of a Linux person who's had his share of problems with installing Windows.
Now, to avoid accusasions of being biased, I will also include the views of a Windows user on installing Linux:
When I installed Windows the process worked properly: The installer looked at my computer for a long time, then copied some files and rebooted. Then it had another long ponder before rebooting again. Then it booted into Windows, announced there were critical updates, and asked to boot again. Then once I installed my graphics drivers it wanted another boot. I guess my only complaint is that it stopped to ask about that fourth reboot. That was kind of odd. I mean, why would I say no?
On the other hand, the Linux installer feels like it?s missing parts or something. I ran the installer and it rebooted just once, right into Linux. After that I installed some updates, but the machine still didn?t ask to reboot itself. It just sat there like it was ready for me to start using it. I waited ten minutes just to be sure, but it never did ask to restart.
Eventually I had to bring in the laptop and reboot that, just so I could feel like the job was done properly.
See, I'm being fair here …
Leviathan
Before you could get a building permit, however, you had to be approved by the Zoning Authority. And Zoning—citing FEMA regulations—would force you to bring the house "up to code," which in many cases meant elevating the house by several feet. Now, elevating your house is very expensive and time consuming—not because of the actual raising, which takes just a day or two, but because of the required permits.
Kafka would have liked the zoning folks. There also is a limit on how high in the sky your house can be. That calculation seems to be a state secret, but it can easily happen that raising your house violates the height requirement. Which means that you can't raise the house that you must raise if you want to repair it. Got that?
Roger Kimball: This Metamorphosis Will Require a Permit
Somehow, I get the feeling that we've reached peak government.
