Posted on 07/23/2008 5:54:47 AM PDT by twntaipan
When you buy a new PC today, unless you hunt down a Linux system or you buy a Mac, you're pretty much stuck with Vista. Sad, but true.
So, when I had to get a new PC in a hurry, after one of my PCs went to the big bit-ranch in the sky with a fried motherboard, the one I bought, a Dell Inspiron 530S from my local Best Buy came pre-infected with Vista Home Premium. Big deal. It took me less than an hour to install Linux Mint 5 Elyssa R1 on it.
As expected, everything on this 2.4GHz Intel Core2 Duo Processor E4600-powered PC ran perfectly with Mint. But, then it struck me, everyone is talking about having to buy Vista systems and then 'downgrading' them to XP Pro, how hard really is it to do that.? Since I had left half the 500BG SATA hard drive unpartitioned, I decided to install XP SP3 on it to see how much, if any, trouble I'd run into. The answer: a lot.
First, thanks to my Microsoft TechNet membership I could download an XP disk image, which included all the patches up to and including SP3. Many people aren't going to be that lucky. They'll need to install XP and then download perhaps hundreds of megabytes of patches. Boy, doesn't that sound like a lot of fun?
If you don't have a MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) or TechNet membership, there are two ways to approach this problem. The first is to manually slipstream the patches into an XP installation CD. You can find a good set of instructions on how to do this in Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Create Bootable CD. While the article is for SP2, the same technique works for XP SP3 as well.
The other way is use nLite. This is a program that allows you to customize Windows XP and 2000. While it's primarily so that you can set up Windows without components you don't want, such as Internet Explorer 6, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, or Messenger, you can also use it to create fully patched-up boot/installation CDs. I highly recommend it.
This time I didn't need to use either one. I simply put in my newly burned XP SP3 CD and went through the usual XP installation routine. Within an hour, I was booting XP.
If this had been Linux my work would have been done. With XP, I soon discovered my job was just beginning. I soon found that XP couldn't recognize my graphics sub-system, a totally ordinary Integrated Intel GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) 3100; the audio system, the Realtek HD Audio chipset, or, most annoying of all, the Intel 10/100Mbps Ethernet port. How can an operating system in 2008 not recognize an Ethernet port?
Well, XP doesn't.
Fortunately, Dell includes a CD with the full range of Windows drivers on it. With it, I was able to install the drivers for all the equipment without much trouble. Within another hour, I finally had a working XP SP3 system.
That wasn't so bad was it? Well, here's my problem, except for Dell, I don't know of any vendors who ship their PCs with driver disks anymore. The usual vendor answer for when you have a driver problem is for you to go online, search down the right driver, download, and install it. Except, of course, had that been my only course of action, I would have been up the creek without a paddle because XP wasn't capable of letting me talk to my network.
Mint, on the other hand, let me point out, had no trouble with any of my hardware. Thus Ubuntu-based Linux recognized the equipment, it set it up and let me get to work. It was Windows that proved to be a pain in the rump.
Greg Kroah-Hartman, a prominent Linux developer, is right. Linux Journal recently reported that he recently told an audience at the Ottawa Linux Symposium that "Linux supports more different types of devices than any other operating system ever has in the history of computing."
Linux isn't perfect that way, as Kroah-Hartman would be the first to admit. Based on what I experienced, though, Linux is much better than Windows at supporting modern hardware.
We have this illusion, that's just because Windows works on the systems it comes pre-installed on, that Windows has great built-in driver support. No, it doesn't. Once you move to installing Windows on a new system, you'll quickly find that Linux, not Windows, has the better built-in hardware support.
Yes, that's right. Linux, not Windows, is easier to install on a new PC. Just something to think about as you get ready to strip Vista off your new computer.
That’s how I run and I’ve yet to have a problem with a trojan.
If you don't care; I certainly don't.
Well I do. And you should care too.
Some 90%+ of spam comes from pwnd Windows machines. My circuit, firewall and mail servers have to deal with all of that spam. That costs me time and money.
As long as his poor practices don't impact the rest of the 'net, you're right, no one cares.
But when people are negligent and let their machines get taken over by bot nets it impacts us.
They aren’t new technology but they do change in how they do things, and most importantly in how the OS accesses them. Heck there’s been at least one MAJOR change in network cards in the last seven years, that being that they frequently AREN’T cards any more. Most network cards now are integral to the motherboard, that would probably seriously change how the OS accesses the card which could be inhibiting XP.
We KNOW XP and Vista and every other MS OS does indeed ship with generic network card drivers. But apparently XPs 7 year old generic network card drivers didn’t like this one. Don’t expand a problem with 1 card into an overall lack, especially when that overall lack doesn’t exist.
Did you have the same network this guy had? The guy needed to do an apples to apples test. None of his criticism means anything without proof that 7 year old Linux handled installing on that machine better.
Hey, if you don't care, neither do I.
The new trojans are nothing like the old days of Nachia and Welchia and Slammer.
The new trojans don't blow up your machine or spew out network traffic and take down your local LAN segment.
They sit there quietly, occasionally checking into the botnet master and execute instructions to send out some spam.
The millions of owners of bot-netted PCs probably think they don't have problems with trojans either.
Well you’re right about that. And in that regard I do care. But you know what I meant.
Nope. Even integrated Ethernet uses exactly the same protocols to work as the old 10Base-2 cards. The only difference is that instead of sitting on a card, the chip is on the mobo. They work exactly the same way.
Did you miss my post above about how I booted brand new hardware with a Linux OS from 2002 and everything worked?
Why? He tried an install of XP and it didn't work on his hardware.
If I had a nickel for every time I've seen a Linux newbie have problems with his particular hardware and then throw up his hands and blame Linux I would be running against Obama myself.
And then along come the MS shills and scream, "See! Linux doesn't work! "
This article is evidence of one person's problem in actually installing a Microsoft operating system. It's actually not that uncommon but he's under no obligation to conform to YOUR rules.
He's doing a very common thing. He's using the most preferred Windows version (XP) on new hardware. And it doesn't work.
Yeah, I know what you meant. And even pointing out the problem to the clueless Windows users won't really get them to change.
But at least it's out there now. They will still probably run in dangerous mode and get eaten up with botnet software.
But they can't say that no one ever told them.
Maybe they use the same stuff maybe not. Remember it’s not the communication with the outside world that matters, it’s the communication with the OS. If that guys network adapter doesn’t talk to the OS the same way network cards did 7 years ago then XP isn’t going to be able to handle it.
I saw that, and asked if it was the same adapter the guy had. If it’s not the same adapter then it means nothing.
Because unless 7 year old Linux handles the same hardware better he didn’t prove anything more than 7 year old OSes have issues with new hardware, which is kind of a no brainer.
No the article is stating that Linux is easier than XP definitely but the truth is his testing didn’t prove that. He’s making a conclusionary statement based on uneven testing of unlike circumstances.
And actually he didn’t prove it doesn’t work. All he proved was that XPs generic network drivers had an issue with his particular network adapter and he needed to use the driver disk that came with the computer. BFD.
Yes, and onboard NICs communicate with the OS in exactly the same way that NIC cards do, they are just on the internal bus rather than the bus that the cards plug into.
This is actually rather easy to determine. I have an antique Pentium II 450 with an onboard Digital ethernet adapter and a PCI NIC with a much newer Digital chipset. The onboard NIC is obviously the same age as the mobo. The PCI NIC is about 6 months old.
OpenBSD shows them as de0 and de1. dmesg shows one on PCI bus 0 and one on PCI bus 1.
I saw that, and asked if it was the same adapter the guy had. If it’s not the same adapter then it means nothing.
Well, maybe so maybe no. If the cards are the same (I don't know, he didn't give enough information) then the point is proven. But even if the cards aren't, the machine is using a industry standard NIC from a major box supplier. The OS should support it, at least in some degraded mode.
It would be different if it was some rare, obscure hardware like a Token Ring card or an ATM card. But it's an Ethernet card. And Ethernet is Ethernet.
What he did was install the most commonly used version of Windows on generic hardware from a major box manufacturer. And it didn't work.
That's an indication of how Microsoft does things.
Maybe they do maybe they don’t. You can’t make universal statements like that. There’s many manufacturers of motherboards and onboard NICs. Some will follow the generic protocols some won’t. The ones that do follow the generic protocols will work with the generic drivers that ship with XP, the ones that don’t won’t. Another part of the problem is they might not announce themselves properly to XP, there’s a lot of places PnP can fall down, so even if the adapter will work with the generic XP drivers if it doesn’t establish itself with XP as a network adapter that will work with the generic drivers XP won’t try to run it with the generic drivers.
Ethernet might be ethernet, but cards aren’t always cards. If his adapter isn’t 2001 generic, or doesn’t announce through the PnP that it’s 2001 generic then XP won’t work or won’t know it can work. There’s a lot of things missing from the article to determine the exact problem. He could have gone to Device Manager and learned a lot. Anything that shows up in Unknown Devices is not communicating itself to XP properly, thus XP doesn’t know what it is and doesn’t know which generic drivers to try to use with it. You might actually be able to get the generic drivers to work, I’ve done that before, taken a network that was showing as Unknown told Windows it was a network card and it worked long enough to go get the full drivers. He didn’t bother with that though, he just complained about a 2001 OS not living up to 2008 standards and then lied about manufacturers other than Dell not shipping driver disks.
Again that’s BS. It DID work, it just needed some additional drivers, which shipped with the computer. It’s not an indication of anything. IT’S A SEVEN YEAR OLD OPERATING SYSTEM, IT HAS ZERO BEARING ON TODAY. You and the author need to get that through your heads.
XP DOES have generic drivers for things like network adapters.
XP’s generic driver DO work with many devices even today.
here have ALWAYS been devices that didn’t work with the generic drivers in XP and other OSes for a variety of reasons.
As an OS gets older that list of things that don’t work with the generic drivers tends to get longer, it’s a natural part of OS aging.
I've been working with PC hardware for 20 years. I've yet to see an Ethernet card that was sufficiently different that it wouldn't at least be recognized. At least since the death of dip switches.
It might not work properly, but the OS would at least see it.
Another part of the problem is they might not announce themselves properly to XP, there’s a lot of places PnP can fall down, so even if the adapter will work with the generic XP drivers if it doesn’t establish itself with XP as a network adapter that will work with the generic drivers XP won’t try to run it with the generic drivers.
Which only points out how screwed up Windows XP is. PnP hardware with Linux "just works." Even Linux from 8 years ago.
He didn’t bother with that though, he just complained about a 2001 OS not living up to 2008 standards and then lied about manufacturers other than Dell not shipping driver disks.
No, what he did was install the most commonly used Windows OS and, out of the box, it fails to do things that even the oldest and simplest Linux install has routinely done for a decade.
I’ve been working with PC hardware and software for 13 years and I’ve seen plenty of hardware of ALL types including network adapters that couldn’t be recognized, especially by OSes more than 5 years older than the hardware.
PnP hardware “just works” with XP too, unless somebody, usually the hardware manufacturer, screwed something up.
No what he said was HIS hardware had some issues which were easily solved with provided disks with ZERO attempt to find out if an equivalent version of Linux would or would not have similar problems. Basically he did half a test made a whole bunch of assumptions about the other half of the test LIED about the general availability of drivers disks and drew a conclusion that’s not backed up. You then expanded that into XP just not working, which is claim even the assuming lying author didn’t jump to.
It's the most commonly used Windows OS. It failed to recognize industry standard Ethernet.
XP DOES have generic drivers for things like network adapters.
Obviously not, since his didn't work.
XP’s generic driver DO work with many devices even today.
Except for his Ethernet card.
here have ALWAYS been devices that didn’t work with the generic drivers in XP and other OSes for a variety of reasons.
No, just one reason. Microsoft.
As an OS gets older that list of things that don’t work with the generic drivers tends to get longer, it’s a natural part of OS aging.
Only under two circumstances.
One is on completely new types of hardware. If his SATA controller hadn't worked, well that would be understandable. SATA didn't even exist when XP came out.
Second, poor coding. An OS should recognize standardized hardware. It doesn't have to fully support it, but it should run in some kind of minimal function.
If it doesn't, the OS is poorly coded.
Ah, a Windows guy. Yes, this is VERY common with Microsoft operating systems. Much less so with other operating systems.
No what he said was HIS hardware had some issues which were easily solved with provided disks with ZERO attempt to find out if an equivalent version of Linux would or would not have similar problems.
That's just the point. Linux doesn't require "extra disks." The hardware is either supported or not. Ethernet has always been supported.
XP requires extra fiddling to get the most basic of things to work.
That's the whole point of the article.
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