over complicated windows installation!!

[ric96]

Now i have installed a lot of linux based os but i decided to give windows 10 a spin --ps. Not a very good decision.
What I was surprised at was that how many times it rebooted, after every freakin step it need to reboot !!!
Linux copies the files and reboots Done! But windows... Ufff.!!
Whats the reasin that linux does it so simply and windows has to reboot many times???

[dan3008]

I've just installed both windows 7 and ubuntu (with LXDE, not that bloat-ware unity) on my new desktop and found the same, it reboots a lot (once in ubuntu install at the end, 4 times during the windoze 7)

the only thing I can see that causes it is that windows seems to install parts of itself, reboot to sort out its registaries and what not, and then use the bits its installed to install the next bit???

I did once email M$ support line, when I was doing a job for a not for profit setting up and installing their computers, and had to install XP on 10 bare bones systems... and M$'s reply "if you dont like the install process, buy a computer with it already installed" ... really?

[fruitoftheloom]

Windows 7 and later auto rebooting during install is a feature nothing more nothing less.

That is the trouble of keep adding bloatware to a late 1980's Operating System which was flawed after the split from IBM's OS/2.....

Whatever way M$ paint it up the NT Kernel is not flexible enough to span various devices.

Steve Jobs got it right with NextStep/OS X which is has its roots in Unix

Linus T also got it right which again has its root in Unix

[Joe Schmoe]

Windows 7 and later auto rebooting during install is a feature nothing more nothing less.

That is the trouble of keep adding bloatware to a late 1980's Operating System which was flawed after the split from IBM's OS/2.....

Whatever way M$ paint it up the NT Kernel is not flexible enough to span various devices.

Steve Jobs got it right with NextStep/OS X which is has its roots in Unix

Linus T also got it right which again has its root in Unix

While I don't disagree with the gist of this post, the fact is that MS has a different objective/operating-constraints-set than either OSX or Linux. That is, it has to be end-user installable (although it almost certainly won't be, in practice) and it has to work 100% of the time (or as close to that as is humanly possible).

What this boils down to is that it doesn't bother me at all if the install (of Windows) has to reboot several times, if that ensures that it will always work. Linux can get away with a "Only reboot at the end" model, because:

1. It is better architected. No argument there.
2. If it fails, the user is assumed to be agile enough to fix it.

P.S. Re: OSX. As far as I can tell, OSX is *never* end-user installed raw. And by "raw", I mean on a machine that isn't running any OS. In comparison, Windows, although almost always sold pre-installed, is sometimes/frequently installed raw (by an end-user).

[fruitoftheloom]

P.S. Re: OSX. As far as I can tell, OSX is *never* end-user installed raw. And by "raw", I mean on a machine that isn't running any OS. In comparison, Windows, although almost always sold pre-installed, is sometimes/frequently installed raw (by an end-user).

OS X 10.6.x was sold as a Retail DVD and afaiaa it was the last version available

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC573 ... ow-leopard

I have installed Retail PPC versions of OSX on several machines, but never a Intel version as yet !

[Joe Schmoe]

You missed the key word "raw" in my text.

[fruitoftheloom]

You missed the key word "raw" in my text.

Not at all, Retail OSX is a bootable DVD and installs on a drive which has no partitions or operating system whatsoever, the
DVD has the required formatting tools included, providing the system requirements are met of course

[jamesh]

Windows 7 and later auto rebooting during install is a feature nothing more nothing less.

That is the trouble of keep adding bloatware to a late 1980's Operating System which was flawed after the split from IBM's OS/2.....

Whatever way M$ paint it up the NT Kernel is not flexible enough to span various devices.

Steve Jobs got it right with NextStep/OS X which is has its roots in Unix

Linus T also got it right which again has its root in Unix

The original NT worked on Intel, Alpha, Power PC and MIPS. I used a twin core alpha based device that was very speedy for the time.

So is was, at some point, capable of 'spanning' multiple devices, if that is what you were getting at. I think it probably would, had the need been there, be fairly easily made to work to the present day on those architectures.

[fruitoftheloom]

Windows 7 and later auto rebooting during install is a feature nothing more nothing less.

That is the trouble of keep adding bloatware to a late 1980's Operating System which was flawed after the split from IBM's OS/2.....

Whatever way M$ paint it up the NT Kernel is not flexible enough to span various devices.

Steve Jobs got it right with NextStep/OS X which is has its roots in Unix

Linus T also got it right which again has its root in Unix

The original NT worked on Intel, Alpha, Power PC and MIPS. I used a twin core alpha based device that was very speedy for the time.

So is was, at some point, capable of 'spanning' multiple devices, if that is what you were getting at. I think it probably would, had the need been there, be fairly easily made to work to the present day on those architectures.

Yes but from Kernel NT5 they change quite considerably, afaiaa the NT4 and earlier was still more "IBM" than M$, also M$ developed a seperate OS for "hand held" in the late 90's so did not see multi-arch as a feature of NT

Though to get back to the original question, most people just accept Windows as the defacto whatever its foibles

[hippy]

Given how rarely one would normally install an OS a few re-boots isn't a lot to worry over in the scheme of things.

I installed a USB-to-VGA display link adapter on my XP machine last week. Ran the driver installer, plugged the adapter in, and it worked as expected. Two minutes work and not even a re-boot needed.

To use it on a Pi it appears I have to rebuild the kernel.

[jamesh]

Windows 7 and later auto rebooting during install is a feature nothing more nothing less.

That is the trouble of keep adding bloatware to a late 1980's Operating System which was flawed after the split from IBM's OS/2.....

Whatever way M$ paint it up the NT Kernel is not flexible enough to span various devices.

Steve Jobs got it right with NextStep/OS X which is has its roots in Unix

Linus T also got it right which again has its root in Unix

The original NT worked on Intel, Alpha, Power PC and MIPS. I used a twin core alpha based device that was very speedy for the time.

So is was, at some point, capable of 'spanning' multiple devices, if that is what you were getting at. I think it probably would, had the need been there, be fairly easily made to work to the present day on those architectures.

Yes but from Kernel NT5 they change quite considerably, afaiaa the NT4 and earlier was still more "IBM" than M$, also M$ developed a seperate OS for "hand held" in the late 90's so did not see multi-arch as a feature of NT

Though to get back to the original question, most people just accept Windows as the defacto whatever its foibles

Wasn't NT4 more VMS than IBM as the the architect came from DEC (WNT being VMS + 1)

[scruss]

Wasn't NT4 more VMS than IBM as the the architect came from DEC (WNT being VMS + 1)

It has some similarities to VMS. When you get down to low-level command line admin tools it can feel very VMS-like with its COMMAND VERB/OPTION/OPTION … syntax.

VMS was pretty decent, and was extremely good at managing devices. I miss its file versioning, although it was far too easy to fill up a folder with old versions.

[ShiftPlusOne]

The reboots don't really bother me. What annoys me the most are the updates and default settings. You don't get all the updates at once, you first need to upgrade windows update, reboot, update .net framework (or something like that), reboot, update a few more packages, reboot, then it will download and install a service pack, reboot.... you get the idea. It renders the PC unusable for the whole day as most of it will be spent on the "windows is configuring update 5 of 9001" screen. There are cases where interrupting the updates or not doing all of the updates before installing all your software will result in things being broken in subtle and annoying ways. Okay, once everything is installed I'll need to make it show file extensions, add the my computer icon, change the start menu to 'classic' style, disable taskbar grouping and make it use the small icons with text. Then launch internet explorer to download a sensible browser and find that there's an annoying configuration thing that pops up. Oh, then there are the drivers... things that can't be found using windows update end up requiring you to go to the manufacturer website and figure out if you have the model 3939478 rev 1.0 A or 3939478 rev 1.0 B to download the correct driver. This is extra fun when the driver is for the NIC because you may end up having to use another computer to download the drivers and then transfer them using a usb drive or something. Maybe 2 days later you have everything you need installed and you're ready to start using it properly.

The most frustrating recent linux install I had was when using a GTX970 graphics card. I found that I wouldn't get any output on the screen at all and had to download a beta driver from the nvidia website, switch to the on-board GPU, install the driver and then switch back to the new GPU. That took about an hour from start to finish with all of the necessary software and updates installed.

</rant>

[marked]

Installed 10 preview earlier this month, for which i think I spent about 5 minutes shepherding answering questions about locale and network, and then really didn't care about what happened for reboots, because really, what does it matter? If you are doing an update on a production system then it should be out of service for however long it takes. Or it is replaced with a complete new build with migration.

I admit that pretty much of my day to day is browser based so I can knock over a box and be back up and running within a couple of minutes especially if I am using Chrome, so even this morning's update to the latest 10 wasn't too painful apart from the really annoying stupid AMD graphics drivers which insist on scaling an HDMI screen to 95% or something - despite the display being perfectly fine beforehand. ....

[dan3008]

Probably not overly relevant to the restart annoyance, but the windows 7 install, on a 1TB disk partition, left my disk over 5% fragmented according to defraggler anyway.

Whereas an ubuntu install, was less than 1%

Just intresting stats for you

[mrpi64]

Isn't windows 10 still in development? I think you can download and try it out somewhere on Microsoft's website.
EDIT: maybe this? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/preview-iso

[fruitoftheloom]

Isn't windows 10 still in development? I think you can download and try it out somewhere on Microsoft's website.
EDIT: maybe this? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/preview-iso

Yep one has to sign up to become a member of the Windows Insider Program, fortunately I am a MSRP

[ric96]

Yeah I am running a preview build.

[Jednorozec]

....the fact is that MS has a different objective/operating-constraints-set than either OSX or Linux. That is, it has to be end-user installable (although it almost certainly won't be, in practice) and it has to work 100% of the time (or as close to that as is humanly possible).

If you have a version of Windows that works close to 100% of the time then you're living in a different universe than I am.

[Joe Schmoe]

....the fact is that MS has a different objective/operating-constraints-set than either OSX or Linux. That is, it has to be end-user installable (although it almost certainly won't be, in practice) and it has to work 100% of the time (or as close to that as is humanly possible).

If you have a version of Windows that works close to 100% of the time then you're living in a different universe than I am.

(Ob snark)

I live in the real world. Where do you live?

[cyrano]

P.S. Re: OSX. As far as I can tell, OSX is *never* end-user installed raw. And by "raw", I mean on a machine that isn't running any OS.

Depends on the user. Some change their own harddisk/SSD when replacing or upgrading. But since it is also very easy to install on any other bootable medium (external harddisk, USB stick, ipod...) lots of people do "raw" installs.

And if you like optical media, you can create bootable DVD's too. Nobody does, of course, bur it is possible.

[Joe Schmoe]

It depends on your definition of "raw".

It seems I am using a different definition than are some of the people here who are attempting to negative my claims.

It is OK. One thing that is certainly true of the modern world - is that everyone is entitled to their own set of definitions.

And their own facts…

[jamesh]

....the fact is that MS has a different objective/operating-constraints-set than either OSX or Linux. That is, it has to be end-user installable (although it almost certainly won't be, in practice) and it has to work 100% of the time (or as close to that as is humanly possible).

If you have a version of Windows that works close to 100% of the time then you're living in a different universe than I am.

Hmm, the only problems I have with my Win7 Lenovo laptop, apart from a really dire wireless adapter (thanks Intel), is it occasionally fails to hibernate properly.Otherwise it's pretty robust. My Ubuntu box dies more often - dodgy graphics driver I suspect.

Still prefer Linux.

[ric96]

Update:
So i decided to revert to windows 7 by doing a fresh install and i actually only restarts twice, less that 8 or 10 but still unnecessary.

[mrpi64]

....the fact is that MS has a different objective/operating-constraints-set than either OSX or Linux. That is, it has to be end-user installable (although it almost certainly won't be, in practice) and it has to work 100% of the time (or as close to that as is humanly possible).

If you have a version of Windows that works close to 100% of the time then you're living in a different universe than I am.

Hmm, the only problems I have with my Win7 Lenovo laptop, apart from a really dire wireless adapter (thanks Intel), is it occasionally fails to hibernate properly.Otherwise it's pretty robust. My Ubuntu box dies more often - dodgy graphics driver I suspect.

Still prefer Linux.

Me too. Win10 keeps on waking itself up from hibernation and sleep, and every time Ubuntu goes into suspend, if something is reading/writing to a file, it sets the filesystem to read-only, which is really annoying and takes 3 reboots to fix.