On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 01:03 am, Danial Thom wrote: > --- Giorgos Keramidas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > wrote: > > On 2005-12-24 14:01, Danial Thom > > > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Don Hinton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > For me, FreeBSD is about twice as fast/easy > > > > to install/configure, > > > > > > and infinitely cheaper. > > > > > > Considering that WinXP usually comes on the > > > > computer, I don't see how > > > > > "installing and configuring FreeBSD" can be > > > > easier than having to do > > > > > nothing at all? > > > > Windows XP comes preinstalled, yes. Not > > "preconfigured" too. It so > > happens that configuring a Windows XP system to > > match one's preferences > > has the potential to: > > > > a) Screw the machine up so completely and > > utterly that a reinstall > > is required. > > b) Take a lot of time. A huge lot of time, > > because of all the > > different 'driver' installation > > processes.
I have installed numerous sytems including various versions of MS-DOS and Windows, OS/2, OS/9, Linux distributions and large range of FreeBSD releases. There have been some difficulties from time to time but with one exception these all yielded to study+reason. The one exception was an XP diagnostic build on which I eventually admitted defeat. > > Ate you claiming that someone not familiar with > how to configure FreeBSD can't screw it up beyond > usefulness? I can point you at about 10% of my > customers who've spent weeks just trying to > compile a kernel and get basic networking > working, much less a desktop with X. > I would claim that XP is quite capable of screwing up its system without any real help from the user. I installed a HP all-in-one scanner-plotter on my a NEC laptop running XP professional and this worked fairly well until HP suggested I should update the software. Thereafter some minor annoyances/bugs appeared. I decided that I should go back to the original so I activated the system unistall utility on the HP software. After partly removing the software the utility reported errors; that it could not complete the uninstall. Nor would the original installation rerun because it thought it was already there. So now I don't have access to the all-in-one. Removing all the directories on the machine identified as from HP and registry entries in identified as HP allowed some reintallation to proceed but it is incomplete and doesn't run. I have never experienced this sort of lockout on a FreeBSD system. It is looking as though I will need to do a completely new XP installation -- which I am not looking forward to. It has been said before Windows is OK until something goes wrong; but then it is mostly unfixable. Malcolm Kay _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"