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As of Slackware 12.0 mountig and unmounting is handled by HAL and messagebus, so even linux-newbies have the chance to carry around 'dirty' partitions on their USBFlashdisks sa Win-users and Mac-users do ;-)
Or instead, have them 'safely removed' as the others do (not?) :-)
That's right. Windows always does the mounting part for us, transparently and instantly, so we never see it, but it still happens. That's why you always have to wait for the hourglass icon before the A: drive contents will display, and that's why you always risk data loss if you remove a floppy disk while the light is on. The way it handles USB disks with the system tray icon is a wee bit more like manual mounting/unmounting. Windows does allow managing and rearranging internal disks but the process is well-hidden and cryptic to non-technical people.
Even Fluxbox, one of the most minimal wm's with a 2MB memory footprint, can do basic transparency. Take that, Windows Vista!
I hate the auto-mounting of Windows. I've had too many funky restarts of Windows when everything except the C drive is somewhere else... and then half my sh!t doesn't work and I have go and start reassigning drive letters, and it doesn't let me... and on... and on... and on. I kind of prefer a simple fstab and (un)mount. It is so much simpler.
PS: I forgot to say that I kind of hate Windows Vista (I have agreed to no EULA in the process of setting up Vista for my roommate so I can say whatever I like about it). A few things about Vista - it has the most unimaginatively messed up and unintuitive network management interface, especially for wireless, one of the most unintuitive desktop applets there is - they have struggled to put everything in different place from Windows XP, currently no free anti virus programs, and then there is the EULA - I'm never agreeing to that.
Last edited by krassi; 07-18-2007 at 07:47 PM.
Reason: Forgot to say
With the ease of use and installation of Ubuntu or Kubuntu (and also Simply Mepis), it is something that I've actually gotten a number of my friends to check out, the same friends who 4 years ago called me nuts for attempting to work through what were linux-headaches back then. This is because over the past 4 years things have gotten so much worse on Windows. In 4 years, Spybot went from having to search for 9,000 spyware/malware/adware titles, to where it is now--OVER 70,000, and new ones come out all the time that don't get caught right away, same with viruses--in fact there are some viruses that don't get caught for even a couple years because they remain dormant until some kind of particular action sets them off, and THEN the new virus definitions come out for the antivirus programs.
Now you can have several antivirus programs, several antispyware programs, several antimalware programs, and still get tons of viruses, spyware, and malware just out visiting web pages that one would think shouldn't have problems, but do. You can get this kind of crap just from visiting news sites from Google News. Ah, NOW my friends are finally getting the idea. They don't think I'm so fanatical about it anymore--but that's probably because I'm no longer pulling my hair out to do things anymore in Linux. Use Linux for all internet applications, and disable network connections on Windows and use Windows for games and applications unavailable for linux. I'm hoping I can get a couple of them to get another drive and install Linux on it instead of them going out and buying a Mac and dual booting to Windows just so they can stop having so many problems when using internet apps.
Yeah, I'm rambling, but I'm just happy that people are finally starting to TRULY see what's so sh**ty about windows, and why no windows update in the world can fix those kinds of problems in windows. And Vista with its DRM and stuff, none of my friends want to touch that with a 10 foot pole.
Yeah, I'm rambling, but I'm just happy that people are finally starting to TRULY see what's so sh**ty about windows, and why no windows update in the world can fix those kinds of problems in windows
It's all about perspective...
I prefer security over virtually anything else...I'd rather use Vista Ultimate than Windows 98, DRM or not. (Actually, I'd rather use Linux/BSD, but we're talking Microsoft here heh)
Someone preferring to listen to "pirated" music or watch "stolen" movies may very well see things differently.
I find it mildly amusing that some members of the Linux community (speaking randomly now, not about Kizzume) bash Windows relentlessly, pointing to past security issues and stability problems, when in all truth Windows has been getting better and better every day (for my needs, at least).
Now if Microsoft would drop activation and cut the cost of the system to 1/8th of it's current cost (hahaha yeah riiiiiiight), I'd actually consider purchasing from Microsoft again.
I find it mildly amusing that some members of the Linux community (speaking randomly now, not about Kizzume) bash Windows relentlessly, pointing to past security issues and stability problems, when in all truth Windows has been getting better and better every day (for my needs, at least).
I have to agree about the stability part. XP is much more stable than 95/98/Me, but then it ought to be, because it's based on Windows NT which was written by a guy who worked on DEC VMS.
As far as security goes, I can't agree with you. A virus scanner is still a necessity under Windows. After 15 years' development, they still can't get that part right.
As far as security goes, I can't agree with you. A virus scanner is still a necessity under Windows. After 15 years' development, they still can't get that part right.
Oh I didn't say they had it perfect...I said it was getting better and better...big difference =)
You'll also notice I said I'd rather use Linux or BSD over either Win9x or WinNT...but since we're talking about Microsoft products, I'd choose WinNT over Win9x.
ok ... now my family(bloody hell , still dont want to sleep) are surfing the net and playing internet games in solaris ... so far so good ...
btw ... i saw an option somewhere in vista saying burning 2 dvd for "backup" of system so that i can roll-back(i hope) a vista like how it was shipped together with the machine even there is not any vista on that same machine anymore but that "hiddenned" system partition is still intact somewhere on the disk ... is that true ... ??
i mean can vista be restore without an actual previous vista system on disk ... ??
[EDIT ::] btw ... i need to know ... preferably with actual experience ...
alred: Many systems today ship without a CD to install the OS. They put the stuff in a a small hidden partition. They provide instructions on how to boot from that partition to recover the system to its original, OEM-fresh state. My wife's laptop also includes instructions on how to make a recovery CD/DVD, using that partition's data.
The "problem" is that it only works on the machine it shipped with - it expects that particular suite of hardware. (At least, that is what I understand.) For a laptop, that won't be much problem. FOr a desktop, where you may have made serious changes, it might be.
>> "Many systems today ship without a CD to install the OS. They put the stuff in a a small hidden partition. They provide instructions on how to boot from that partition to recover the system to its original, OEM-fresh state. My wife's laptop also includes instructions on how to make a recovery CD/DVD, using that partition's data."
i will check it out for the laptop that i'm holding ...
>> "The "problem" is that it only works on the machine it shipped with - it expects that particular suite of hardware. (At least, that is what I understand.) For a laptop, that won't be much problem. FOr a desktop, where you may have made serious changes, it might be."
it will still be the same laptop ... but since you mentioned the "expectation" of vista , my vista partition is a lot smaller now ... will that affect the re-installation from that "hiddenned" partition ... ?? will it reclaim the rest of my partitions into a single "full" vista partition ... ??
//i need to get rid of vista and try installing other systems(probably 2 systems) ... but i need to make sure that i can still restore vista anytime if i want for those odd cases once in a blue moon i guess ...
I'll admit I don't know, alred. I *assume* it just formats the "C:" drive, and then installs to it, but it *might* re-write the partition table, too. Maybe someone else has knowledge / experience with this.
Lack of software for Windows? How much research have you done?
I know of far more programs for Windows that don't have Linux versions or have inferior Linux versions than programs for Linux that don't have Windows versions. I don't know of a single program for which the Windows version is inferior to the Linux one.
In fact I don't actually know of a single program needed for every day use that only works on Linux and not Windows!
gkrellm ;D
Top that
K3b - a full blown install with transcode & stuff
Konqueror (for network)
Krusader (for local)
mc (for remote accessed locally)
screen (Linux can have more screens even "in DOS")
X11 (MPX+Compiz+KDE) - all native
go figure...
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