[tlug] Ease of use: the eXPerience [was: Suse blues]

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "sjt" == Stephen J Turnbull <stephen@example.com> writes:

    sjt> Yes, having experienced the nirvana of an OS where you can
    sjt> hotswap network drivers and even change your IP address
    sjt> without rebooting, one where the string "Abort/Retry/Fail?" 
    sjt> exists nowhere in the whole system, you will find it very
    sjt> painful to have to reboot every so often, and reinstall the
    sjt> whole OS every so often.

And I thought I was maybe overstressing the point!

So here I am sitting in front of a Windows XP box wondering WTF he was
talking about, "ease of use."  It's yosan-tsubushi[1] time again, so I
bought copies of Windows XP and Visual .NET.  Maybe we can debug (==
prove that Microsoft has undocumented features we're not compatible
with) some of the brand-new bugs that have been reported since a few
XEmacs users started worshipping the false god, XP.  Here we go....

I stick the CD in the drive, it starts up as usual (ie, heaven help me
if Microsoft has once again distributed software with the viruses and
trojans already installed in their own executables), and I'm faced
with a screen telling me that my brand-new Windows XP installation (I
mean, the Windows XP install disk is still warm) needs to be upgraded:
security, remote debugger, .NET framework.  Raaaaight.

So I put in the "component upgrade CD", and it tells me I should
enable some remote components, which require remote downloads.  OK, so
I plug in the ethernet cable (never give a connection to a Windows box
until _you_ are ready), and discover that it's somehow not compatible
with the local DHCP server (that could be our fault, of course).
Configure by hand (NB, the menu tree has been completely rearranged
since Windows 2000, which of course was different from NT 4, NT 3.5,
NT 3.1, 98, ME, WfW, and 3.1---95 was the same as 98, and I never had
to configure a 3.0 box).  Typo means that I can't even ping my
gateway, fix that, we're golden.  Install the remote stuff (from
where? nobody said), put the VS.NET CD back in, whirr! and 10 seconds
later (most of which was spent finding the drive AFAICT), something
about "installing Japanese support" flashes by, and it says "kanryo,
click here".

Uh-oh.

Yup; I've got a remote debugger that tells me in Japanese (at least it
didn't call me "o-mae") that required libraries aren't installed.

Open the exploiter, find the disk, click it, restart.  "You've already
got an installation.  It cannot be changed or upgraded, you must
remove it and reinstall from scratch."  Gotcha.

Remove.  Reinstall ... here we go.  Seems to be working (but why does
it take multiple hours to install?  I could burn a copy---five disks'
worth---if only that were legal---in less time).

No, it's not working.  It was unable to copy some images.  Hopefully
the rest will be OK ... nope, out of several hundred images, it
reports successfully copying _two_.  Hey!  What a great idea---a GUI
devo environment without graphics!!

Can I have my Nirvana back, please?

I think the XP installation went OK, so MSFT is batting .500.  Pretty
good, considering the billions they've spent on this.  ;-)


Footnotes: 
[1]  I can't not spend it and I can't give it to someone else.  I
can't spend it on travel, let alone international travel; I can't
spend it rewarding experimental subjects---apparently the human
subjects committee objects to over-paying students; if I spend it on
books, the library gets them first, and only when their arbaito gets
around to registering them do they come to me---except if they weigh
more than about 2kg, in which case I get a polite note asking me to
come pick them up; until next year, I can't spend it on conference
registration fees; I can't spend it on membership fees for an academic
society.

Aren't you taxpayers glad that I bought a MSFT product instead?

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.