Gentoo vs. Windows: No Comparison

blackhorse · Last edited by blackhorse on Wed Dec 29, 2004 2:00 am; edited 1 time in total

Recently my dad had me install a computer, dual boot windows 2K and Gentoo, as a learning experience. It is my second time installing Gentoo. I partitioned the hard drive with fdisk, then installed windows. It all went on ok, and then booted. Of course the Windows 2K install disk did not have any of the drivers needed for sound or networking. :roll:

I had to go onto another computer and download them off the net. So I am finally on the net, and the first thing I have to do is: UPDATE it!? I tell it to do all of the critical updates, and then I have to reboot, only to find that there were thirty more critical updates to do.

One of which refuses to work or give a decent error message. Then comes the breath of fresh air, INSTALLING GENTOO!!! That went very well, and I only have a little more to do, i.e. emerge kde

. All this to say, thank you to all of you out there who have made gentoo possible, it is great.
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placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

I never get tired of hearing these stories. XD It is quite sad how MS has brainwashed people into thinking that things such as virii and crashing are normal. :\

If there was one word I would use to describe Windows 95, it would be "demonic". I mean, you could reboot that thing and it would come back up with everything you were just doing. Heck, I even managed to get it to the point where it said "Are you sure you want to uninstall Windows?" and it only gave me an "Ok" option. I was around 5 years old at the time so I am not sure whether or not it was a virus, but either way it did not go away even after a hard reset of the system.

Windows is less demonic now and has become more annoying than anything else. However, I used to have nightmares about viruses in my computer and crap like that when I was younger thanks to Windows. Yeah, I seriously had nightmares about that crap. :\ When I still used Windows I did not have nightmares, merely just paranoia about data loss which I am still getting over but seeing that I have had Gentoo installed forever without major problems that is slowly working itself out of my system.

I would like to thank Gentoo for breaking me from that damned world.

blackhorse · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:21 am Post subject:

One thing that I did not mention is that I ended up rebooting NINE times while I was installing it? It is really annoying, especially since once it told me to check the box down below if I wanted to reboot later, but the box was, you guessed it, greyed out! I had a dream that night that it told me the same thing only there was no box at all. :lol:

Whoever heard of so many major updates on a newly installed gentoo box

. Gentoo works way better that windows and costs much much less. :wink:

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placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

Yeah, and nothing beats plugging in USB devices and having them just work since all the drivers you need for them is in the kernel already. Heck, I can also use all of the axises on my Gravis Eliminator Aftershock with the generic HID drivers whereas the official drivers in Windows only gave me the use of one of them. <3 Gentoo

AllTom · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:45 am Post subject:

placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

It is different because Gentoo is not rendered useless while updating it. I can still play games and such while things emerge, but that is a lot harder in Windows especially since it reboots.

Naib · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 1:06 am Post subject:

the only time you have to reboot gentoo/linux is a kernel upgrade, everything else can be done through a X restart or a start/stop service.

True Gentoo on the long side of a linux install. I convinced a mate to install linux (suggested Mandrake). I met him through my DC clan so only contact is MSN. I was able to get all the info abt his comp easy enough. A quick use of partition magic to resize his windows partition and also pre-make swap and root. Then a quick "everything is easy, just two scary points"

30min later he was on aMSN chatting saying fooking ell it all worked first time, got him to do a secuity update et al and no problems.

equally got a mate at work to use mandrake and he has noticed that is BlueYonder BB (same as me) is about 120k/s download while under windows it is only 80k/sec

And the best bit, efter a dodgy nvidia driver emerge after an overnight big emerge of the last GNOME upgrade (plus a timed "shutdown -h +240") my wife got home from work earlier, she doesn't care what we use as long as it works when she needs it (she is use to linux now). But linux was borked (default for grub)

got her to choose windows. Got a phonecall about 5min later saying it took soo long to boot and progs took soo long to start and... good old Gentoo and custom CFLAG

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blackhorse · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 1:13 am Post subject:

thechris · Veteran Joined: 12 Oct 2003 Posts: 1203

windows no longer installs on my computer. the setup cd boots to a black screen. this is for 64 bit or 32 bit. both cds were used once in the past and are free from scratches or other damage...

not sure why. it worked one time.

malone

PhotonX · n00b Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Irvine, CA

Never had my windows machine crash once, nor have i ever gotten a virus. I think you just dont know how to use windows

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blackhorse · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 7:47 am Post subject:

You must have been behind a firewall, not used internet explorer, outlookexpress, and not used it much then, if it is anything like the windows boxes in my experience. Even the least used ones got bit rot over several years and games just stopped working. And if the crummy (most of the time

) performance is not enough, did you know that you had to call and ask microsoft if it is ok to wipe your disk on an xp machine?
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PhotonX · n00b Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Irvine, CA

John-Boy · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:29 am Post subject:

The slowdown with XP gets me. Point in case - I've had a Gentoo install ticking over for 9-10 months now, the same one - I've had to restore from a backup twice (my own screw-ups here), but it's still the same one.

Before Gnu/Linux - Gentoo, I always advocated a spring-clean of Windows every 6 months or so, a fresh install. Recently dusted off an old machine with XP on it. Lord it's slow, initial boot-up is actually about the same (ish - maybe a little quicker) as Gentoo with KDE, then you get to loading MSN .. yadda yadda ... while your system is paralyzed.

I know what I'm doing with Windows as well

The same ain't 100% true for Gentoo (yet) and no-slow down, I'm immune to viruses - spyware - the only downer is I work with Windows and .. erm.. VB (the shame).

blackhorse · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:17 pm Post subject:

For a while when I was first getting gentoo up and running (not including a window manager) I was booting off of a Knoppix cd, and windows was going the same speed or slower it seemed, it could not have been going much faster.
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Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.

MdaG · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 5:35 pm Post subject:

My XP box runs fairly well too, but I feel it's bloated and slow compared to my Gentoo box. But some things still work better in XP for me (SSH, games, WLAN), but as I get better hopefully two of those will be solved.

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PhotonX · n00b Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Irvine, CA

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Athas · Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2004 11:04 am Post subject:

blackhorse · Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2004 5:00 pm Post subject:

I have a friend who has an older gateway 2500 laptop, and it had windows on it when she got it. It was running more that painfully slow, and then she ran a bunch of spy-ware and virus killers on it, and I am not sure of the exact amount but I know that both were in the double digits. I convinced her to run Linux on it, but the laptop itself could not run Gentoo, so I installed Fedora Core 3, and it took a good portion of my night away (that's how slow the laptop was) then my dad got fvwm on it and it runs MUCH faster. My friend is looking forward to the day she can get a fast enough laptop for gentoo

.
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Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.

PhotonX · n00b Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Irvine, CA

robet · Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:38 am Post subject:

blackhorse: you've got a cool dad. :wink:

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Athas · Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:50 am Post subject: