Stupid !$!@#$ Windows

[mdlbear]

Stupid goddamn Windows! For some reason, Windows on the Younger Daughter's machine wasn't responding to the keyboard. Mouse worked fine, and the keyboard worked for the bootloader and Windows login, so it's not hardware. Anything I could think of to do to fix it would, of course, involve typing in a URL to find software. Nuke and pave. Takes roughly half an hour to load the install image from three CDs, and probably another two hours to install a minimally useful set of programs (Firefox, OOo, network config for the printers). Foo.

Comments

[mdlbear]

Windows, actually -- this is my 14-year-old's machine, and she just has to have her games...

At some point, after she cleans up her room a little more, I'll swap out the noisy CPU fan and make it a Win$/Linux dual-boot system.

[mneme]

Makes sense, though I suspect win-in-linux or linux-in-windows is more practical, since actually rebooting to switch contexts is really annoying.

[mdlbear]

There aren't any really good, free VM's that I know of. Cygwin is almost useable on the Windows side; I'm not sure about Wine -- it's a pain in the arse to set up, or was the last time I tried it.

And it means that the one Linux-only workstation in the house is almost always available for me.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, the Windows hypervisor will run linux just fine.

[mdlbear]

But I thought that wasn't due until Vista. Meaning whether the released version will run Linux is still a matter for conjecture.

[mdlbear]

And in any case it's unlikely to run on my hardware.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

It is not conjecture, as the matter is public record.

[mdlbear]

Unless Microsoft decides later on that it doesn't suit their business model. They've made a lot of promises that turned out to be, um, less than accurate.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

Unless Microsoft decides later on that it doesn't suit their business model.

Yes, that could happen (I've seen Apple do the same), but I believe treating such a conjecture as a given is called FUD.

Right now linux, as well as around 1000 other operating systems, run just fine on Virtual PC and Virtual Server, products that have been around for quite some time. I and others working on those projects personally made sure the virtualization was accurate enough to make them work unmodified. We gave some of the OSes extra scrutiny to improve their performance under virtualization. Now linux is also part of that extra special care: "We've added support for non-Windows virtual machines being hosted on top of our Virtual Server product, including support for Linux", said Ballmer (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/2005/04-20ManagementSummit.mspx). And yes, it is done for business reasons. Companies run a mixed shop and it serves them best if all of their systems run well.

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

Oh.

You mean that MS has successfully cloned something that VMware did years ago with ESX Server. That MS has explicitly called an "unsupported configuration" under VMware.

Using the technology of a product that originally did run Linux properly, which support was TAKEN OUT once the original product was purchased from the original company that made it.

And now MS is adding it back in for 'business reasons'.

MS must really despise people who remember their history. Kinda like the $30 million "UNIX license"/handshake they gave to Caldera/SCO to sow even more FUD about an OS they are now officially supporting.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

Using the technology of a product that originally did run Linux properly, which support was TAKEN OUT once the original product was purchased from the original company that made it.

Aerowolf, what makes you think what you wrote is true? What technology? Which company?

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

Connectix VirtualPC, actually. Which became Microsoft VirtualPC, and dropped support for Linux at that time.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

Connectix VirtualPC, actually. Which became Microsoft VirtualPC, and dropped support for Linux at that time.

Good, we agree on the company and the product. I worked at Connectix as their chief architect. Connectix VPC supported over 1000 operating systems; the list can be found here: http://vpc.visualwin.com. Now when Connectix said we 'support' certain guest operating systems, we meant 'it works'. Big companies, however, have a specific meaning for the term 'Support'; it means the company will engage in maintenance contracts to repair problems arising out of use of a system, provide multi-tier problem escalationn, and so on. So, yes, initially when Microsoft acquired us (Connectix) they (now we) definitely did not Support linux, *but* linux most certainly continued to work on Microsoft branded VPC. Also, we discovered a bug in VPC that crashed the new 4GB/4GB facility in some linux distros. We *fixed* that bug in Microsoft VPC. And in April 2005, Microsoft announced future plans to *Support* additional third-party operating systems, including certain Linux distributions (and please don't get on my case about the lack of a date).

Now you may want to believe all this is false, but you would be mistaken.

Now let us have a green beer, pease.

[mdlbear]

Unfortunately, what I really want is Windows running as a guest OS under Linux or under an open source hypervisor; this is a configuration that Connectix used to support, but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't work under Microsoft's version. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

what I really want is Windows running as a guest OS under Linux or under an open source hypervisor; this is a configuration that Connectix used to support

Oh yes, it was a pain trying to get the myriad distros and their myriad tweaked up kernels to continue working. This was not a stable product.

Have you looked at xen? That is an open source paravirtulization hypervisor that supports both linux guests (albiet heavily modified). When the hardware virtualization capable machines become available, xen will be able to run unmodified Windows atop it.

[mdlbear]

I know about Xen -- trouble is it won't run Windows on my hardware, and I'm unlikely to upgrade any of my machines to virtualization-capable CPUs for several years. So I have a bunch of cheap dual-boot machines ($250 at Fry's) and occasionally have to reboot one. Doesn't affect me much -- the only Windows program I use on a regular basis is TaxCut.