4 shiny round coasters.

[chanchao]

I'm opening an office for my new business, so this means having to get serious on licensing for all software I use, as the office is in a very public place and likely to get raided by the local software-gestapo. So I figured, let's use Linux as a file/print/webserver and save me the cost of another Windows license.

Note that the first time I installed Linux was somewhere in 1994 or therabouts.. I'm very sympathetic to the concept so I've tried on average every 2-3 years, thinking by now it would be mature.. You probably won't want to read further, but what I'm about to say I think is a typical account of a typical person attempting to use Linux outside of the classroom/bedroom, for a real world business purpose. :)

First: No Internet (No modem found) After some Googling around it turns out I had to go to Linuxant.com for a modem driver which turned out to be commercial! And not just commercial, the driver costs as much as the modem itself! ($19,95) Installing the trial version (max 14,4 speed, wow, good thing I'm into SM) was fun too, the script tried to take me to their website to collect the right driver. (HELLO, I don't have a working modem yet, how do they expect me to connect to their website?!) So then on to a manual install, burnt the downloaded file to CD (because "no NTFS support in the kernel"!?!). Then more warning messages about it being better if my kernel would support a 16kB stack size whatever that means and recommends to recompile it .. . . . Right.

So while Windows XP started out at $75 (Amazon.com) and Linux at $0, after a whole frustrating day (didn't see my NTFS partition either, and then trying to configure Samba..) if I count just $20 an hour for my time (yes, I'm cheap), Linux is already at the point where it costs me more than just picking up XP and go walk the dog while it installs all by itself.

On a more constructive note: I VERY much like free / open-source software. I use OpenOffice, Firefox, Gimp, AVG anti virus and several other apps and also plan to use these for pretty much all workstations in my office. But they will run on Windows XP, thankyouverymuch.

Thanks for listening to my rant, assuming you got this far. :)

[terr9898]

I am sorry about your experience. In my network, there is a file/print server, web server, ftp server and yum server. It does take time and patience but the end result is worth it -- these 3 boxes have had uptime for around 3 months now.

[crackers]

Free does not, unfortunately, necessarily equate to Total Cost of Ownership. What you've run into the hardware/userbase chicken-and-egg problem (More users means more hardware support, but unless there's more hardware support, no more users).

Of course, the nice thing is that now you've got it running, it'll probably run for years... without having to upgrade to Longshorn or whatever it's called... :D

[james_in_denver]

In counterpoint to your post, a few weeks ago I upgraded my motherboard and processor on one of my systems. It was dual boot with Windows XP and Fedora Core 3.

So I take the old MOBO out, drop the new one in, and boot Linux. Kudzu realized what was up, and nicely de-installed the drivers for my old motherboard, and installed all of the new drivers. It did miss the maximum resolution for my monitor, but that only took me a minute or two to change.

So I rebooted, needed to get into XP for a bit. Black screen....reboot....black screen....reboot....black screen.....No safe mode, (with or without networking)....just a black screen....(did I mention that all windows gave me was a black screen?)....drop My windows XP cd into the CDROM to try to get into something like safe mode....black screen still......

I ended up booting Linux to back up my XP partition and had to do a re-install of XP, lost all of my settings, a few DLL's that I had to track down, had to re-install about 15 apps, all in all it was a day and a half before XP was even remotely close to where it had been before the new MOBO....It took something like 20-30 reboots of XP to get everything installed and running. Something like 20 hours of hair pulling frustration with Microsoft just because I upgraded my motherboard.....

In my opinion, if you want a stable, secure, and non-proprietary O/S that doesn't intentionally commit suicide just because you install a new motherboard, then Linux is your answer. Fedora took exactly ONE boot, and a couple of minutes changing my screen resolution. XP took nearly two full days to get back up and running.

Oh, and BTW, that modem you are using?, it's called a "Winmodem".....If you had a decent Hayes modem, then you wouldn't have had to spend the $$ for a proprietary driver for a proprietary modem.

[dickinsd]

In counterpoint to your post, a few weeks ago I upgraded my motherboard and processor on one of my systems. It was dual boot with Windows XP and Fedora Core 3.

So I take the old MOBO out, drop the new one in, and boot Linux. Kudzu realized what was up, and nicely de-installed the drivers for my old motherboard, and installed all of the new drivers. It did miss the maximum resolution for my monitor, but that only took me a minute or two to change.

So I rebooted, needed to get into XP for a bit. Black screen....reboot....black screen....reboot....black screen.....No safe mode, (with or without networking)....just a black screen....(did I mention that all windows gave me was a black screen?)....drop My windows XP cd into the CDROM to try to get into something like safe mode....black screen still......

I ended up booting Linux to back up my XP partition and had to do a re-install of XP, lost all of my settings, a few DLL's that I had to track down, had to re-install about 15 apps, all in all it was a day and a half before XP was even remotely close to where it had been before the new MOBO....It took something like 20-30 reboots of XP to get everything installed and running. Something like 20 hours of hair pulling frustration with Microsoft just because I upgraded my motherboard.....

In my opinion, if you want a stable, secure, and non-proprietary O/S that doesn't intentionally commit suicide just because you install a new motherboard, then Linux is your answer. Fedora took exactly ONE boot, and a couple of minutes changing my screen resolution. XP took nearly two full days to get back up and running.

Oh, and BTW, that modem you are using?, it's called a "Winmodem".....If you had a decent Hayes modem, then you wouldn't have had to spend the $$ for a proprietary driver for a proprietary modem.


:eek: Unlucky on that experience mate.

I was pretty impressed to read about the way kudzu realised the difference and made the necessary changes for you.

I have had that windows problem in the past, the way round it (always works for me) is to remove the chipset related devices from device manager before you change mobo (not great if your only changing cos your mobo died or something)

Before you swap out the current motherboard go to device manager and select the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller and select your current storage controller. Right click, select update driver and select install from a list or specific location. Click don't search I will choose the driver to install and select the standard dual channel IDE controller.

Your SATA, USB controller ... blah blah blah - basically anything that has one of the following in its name:

VIA
Nvidia
SIS
Intel

Just a tip for the future... :p