I find it funny how my Windows XP seems determined to make certain that I can never go back to their side, after being a Linux user for almost two years. This article considers using alternate software to run your computer system. I have been taking some defencive driving courses, and as a part of the package, they gave me a piece of software on a CD that was supposed to train my brain for driving. This is the interesting story of what happened when I tried to get this software running. (Perhaps not so much running as crawling in agony to a hospital.)

Note: If you don’t know anything about Linux, Open Source, or what an Operating System is, and especially if this is your first time having heard of either, I suggest reading my article, called, So, What Is Open Source?.

Situation:

First of all, I would like to note that the system requirements don’t even bother to mention that this software is for Windows only. They just tell you that it installs to the C drive, that pretty much says it all. Also, the system requirements are pretty light, and even a very old computer could handle this thing. My system could definitely do it, being a mediocre computer from a Canadian company that few have heard of outside of Canada, called MDG. It has two 80 gig hard drives, some Intel integrated sound card, a 128 MB video card and some other junk, including USB version 1 ports that are annoying in every way, but mostly on Windows.

So, when I first brought home the CD after the 7-hour sitfest/lecture, I went strait into Fedora Linux (without really thinking; I’ve also now switched to Ubuntu Linux for those interested) and popped it in, just to see how Wine/Cedega (software that emulates Windows so you can run Windows programs on Linux. You see, normally an OS – an Operating System – cannot run software that was made for it, but the Linux programming gurus have found a way around that.) would handle the operation… so here is my experience on Linux:

The computer booted quietly and smoothly. I logged in and my smooth, white desktop with blue globe and the text “Linux Desktop”, and smiled as I saw everything exactly as I had it last time, with customized icon theme and a work-in-progress piece of art on my desktop. One thing I love about GNOME is that when you log in, everything is ready to go. All the systems are running and ready to respond, and when you click, even the first time, there is no delay. Programs start up as fast as if you’d had been logged in for an hour. So, I put in the CD and the CD drive quietly spun up and a convenient icon popped onto my desktop that linked to the now-mounted CD drive. I go into the CD and double-click the autorun.exe, and to mild surprise, a purple splash screen popped up in front of my eyes. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be quite that easy. In fact, it went through the entire install process, including connecting to the Internet to inform me of my password and registering the fact that I have indeed started using this software. Then, I log in and begin taking tests that are supposed to determine my natural abilities in terms of reaction and tracking. So, I used the software for a bit until I had something more important to deal with, and then I shut it down and noticed that there was a icon on my desktop that linked right to the start.exe file.

So, a few days later, I decided to actually go ahead and do the CD and get it over with, or at least do a bit of it to make it seem like I at least put forth some effort. I figured I should to it natively in Windows just in case that something was going wrong with the emulation, and I had not noticed. Previous experience had made me a bit wary of emulating Windows, as if to say that any sane piece of code would scratch it’s head, say “what the &*%$” and die out of confusion when trying to comprehend the kind of thing that it has to put up with when dealing with Windows. So here is my experience with Windows…

Windows:

I, grimacing, select “Windows” from my Grub selection screen and boot into Windows. The entire thing (from black screen to desktop) takes about 20 seconds, I timed, but that means nothing, because the desktop loads in chunks and nothing responds (except, curiously, Microsoft games like minesweeper and solitaire) for about a minute after that. You can go into the menu and select an application, but nothing will happen for about that minute, plus another 30 seconds because you pissed it off. OK, so I see the standard icons, my links to all the drives across the top (because Windows doesn’t automatically put them on my desktop for me and remove them when they aren’t being used), the bliss background of the field (perhaps the one thing that MS managed to do right, aside from minesweeper), and the gradient-filled start bar.

I wait a bit. Then one of those odd pop-ups comes up from my tool bar notifying me that some particular and unrecognizable icon would like to inform me that I have “unused icons on my desktop”. OK, hey, I’ve used those icons, thank you very much. I know that it means that I haven’t used them lately, but I haven’t used Windows lately either. If I didn’t want those icons there, I would get rid of them, damn it. So, I take a deep breath, coping with it, and click the x to make the pop-up go the heck away and report that I’m not interested to it’s icon. The icon then retaliated by sending the messenger back again…. The pop up came back about 10 seconds later telling me again, that there are unused icons. OK, hey, I’ve used th-… I take another deep breath and close the pop-up again. OK, so, I pop in that CD. It whirs like a mad beast in my drive. I swear, Windows isn’t as nice to my hardware as Linux is. All the time, where a similar action in Linux would have made the computer work quietly, the same Windows action makes a grinding noise, as if the machine is gritting it’s teeth, trying to cope with he pain of the stupidity of it’s software. This is the same pain that I was about to feel in about 5 minutes. So, anyways, just as the software’s autorun was just starting, I noticed this (it happens every time that we start up and it doesn’t matter how may times you install this or with what user): a pop up comes up (one of those odd speech bubbles from some odd icon that you’re not sure what the purpose of is.) and it says: “Hardware Found/ LexmarkLexmark X73/ Click here to install hardware”. Naturally, no one clicks there, because the printer works and we have in fact installed the software at least 7 times. I take my third deep breath and don’t click there as the full-screen installer for the CD kicks in. (Note, my friend tells me that when something is full-screen, Windows tends to back off a bit.) Then, bam. A pop-up hits me. I get knocked out of my seat. The thing informs me that the hardware is ready to install and that this is the easy-to-use-gray-on-gray installer that will help me through it by me clicking next 5 times without actually having to read any of what it says or change anything. Seriously, who does? I click cancel at this point seeing as I’ve bloody installed the hardware already and so has my dad, mom, dog, and the computer itself at 3 am when it’s off and no one is looking. Taking what feels like a lot longer than on Linux, the software installs, copying all the data to the hard drive, while my CD drive made noises similar to “please… kill me…”. It then starts up and tells me to register a user to get the pass, which I’ve already done. It then tells me this and this is where I rip out my hair, bash my head across the keyboard and audibly scream, because what it says is: “This software needs sound in order to function. No sound card is detected on your computer. Press OK to exit.” I stare in disbelief. I see another damn pop-up as I click the Start menu to shut down. I breathe ahead of time for this pop-up. It reads “New software installed”. Out of curiosity, I check out what was recently installed, knowing full-well that I had just installed the driving software. It tells me that no, that wasn’t recently installed and in fact isn’t in the menu, but that the MS office suite was just installed including Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. These had been installed when I got the computer some 3 years ago. I then quickly hit the hard-reboot (restart) button on my computer, as I could not bare to see the stupid thing on shut-down that told me that Internet Explorer won’t go down so easy and needs to be killed. Oh, sorry, ‘kill’ is a Linux term that makes sense. Windows says “End Task?”. No. I don’t want to end the task, I just want to SHUT DOWN MY COMPUTER.

Linux:

At this point I quickly booted into my sleek, well-functioning Linux desktop, where freedom surrounds me and everything I need is just so much a click away. I think about the bliss of just having to click twice once to install a piece of software that you downloaded. I think about how you can download and install right away with yum, which allows you to install any piece of software on various servers around the world through a nice GUI (yum extender, Yumex; or Synaptic). I think about how everything works and nothing really lags. I think about how it doesn’t inform me of what software I just installed, knowing that I know what software I install. I think about how everything is organized better and all software is installed to a place and how I don’t need to think about where that is or why that is.

Anyways, so is there more software choice on Windows? For some reason, I don’t think so. Remember: if you’re sick of windows, have an open mind and try something different. Maybe Ubuntu Linux is right for you as well. A curious experience indeed.

Stub/Summary: “Windows/Linux comparison — Windows is not always the best choice. (And for me, often the wrong choice)”

Post Note: My Windows is likely worse off than most. My Windows mileage is likely not standard.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Electronics, Open Source, Comedy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.