How Long Does it Take You to Tweak a New Box? 463
An anonymous reader asks: "When you get a new computer, how long does it take to make it 'home'? On a Windows system, there seem to be a huge number of preferences I have to choose before it is really comfortable (doing things like: installing software; changing the wallpaper and color schemes; start menu layout; and so forth). How long do you have to fiddle with computer until you have it set up the way you like? Do you use any shortcuts to speed up the process?"
Personally (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows: 6 hours from install to just having the current updates.
Any more funny jokes?
Two years . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Norton Ghost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The only real shortcut.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh wait, you're a Windows noob. Sorry, you'll have to do it the hard way forever. Bill Gates hates you.
Re:On linux... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On linux... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya know why CLSID is such a large part of the registry? It has nothing to do with preventing piracy.
Ya know how CurrentControlSet is so thorough, and how it's off on it's own branch of HKLM? Yeah, if you were to replace all of those values with the correct values for the machine that you were moving to (primarily system driver and hardware reference information) then you could in theory just boot windows back up without ever having a glitch. Theory though, not practice. The theory is sound because MS designed the registry to be modular. It's not their fault that other companies don't respect the sandboxing that MS set up, and it's hard for them to enforce that people play nice, but look at the strides they've made via their IDEs (which is where most people write the said crappy software) and
Most of the problems that people have with drivers or program interoperability stem from those two registry branches anyways, is another good reason why all IT folks should be able to recite the major points of the registry, as well as knowing all the places where windows looks when it goes to start the various functions.
This is one of the few shortcomings I can find with the registry, but it's not the fault of MS as a whole, but rather the failure of different groups to consolidate on one storage location for important settings. Then again, two of the reasons why there were so many different locations where settings may have been in the flat files were for security through obfuscation and because sometimes the maximum size you could read on a flat file could have been exceeded due to the number of settings that you might want, so MS designers purposely chose to store info in multiple places, such as the load differences between system.ini and win.ini.
So I've been going in this direction to come back to, the registry didn't have anything to do with limiting piracy, if anything, it's the reason why so many people want to run Windows, even if they don't want to pay for it. The real thing that seems to be annoying to so many geeks is the oobe libs.
Need I go further?
Re:On linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
LOL
The correct answer was that the authors of NT realized the ever-expanding and slow-to-process INI arrangement in earlier, simpler versions of Windows was doomed to failure. The registry is a great idea with a really god-awful implementation, and the problems are compounded by a planet full of relatively poor quality programmers that insist on jamming all sorts of weird shit in there in the most unlikely places.
The crackheads who came up with the implementation of COM registration are especially deserving of slow painful deaths. That's 99% of your registry garbage right there.
But it is utterly and absolutely unrelated to piracy. Good luck next time.
Re:On linux... (Score:2, Insightful)
But in reality -- i.e. real life -- companies don't obey it. Registry entries get orphaned, corrupted, misplaced, misused, etc.
I can't tell you the number of programs that I have had trouble removing because of registry issues. Also, every week when my Symantec System Works program runs, it finds hundreds of registry issues that seem to reappear no matter how many times they are corrected or scrubbed. And who can forget the dreaded registry corruption. Change/delete one entry and you can corrupt and lock up your computer with no easy way to recover (unless you backed up your registry recently).
I don't know about you but I am reasonable computer competent and I find the registry very cumbersome and confusing with often hundreds of entries strewn all over the place.
Linux is just sooooo easy. Config files are almost always text files in either
So, yes in theory, one grand, humongous, registry file is "elegant" in some perfect world where everybody rights perfectly Microsoft-compliant code. In reality, the registry is a huge PITA that is infinitely worth then the humbler Unix ascii config file method.
Re:On linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
So yes, of course it does have the ""shortest "initial setup time"".
It's supposed to end? (Score:2, Insightful)
My 'defaults' for a new system: rip the keys off and change them to Dvorak, install gcc + build tools, create RSA keys for ssh, certificates for wireless, setup rsync script for backup, install X11, install VNC + rdesktop clients, setting terminal to default to 'screen' for multiple tty goodness. And that's just for the girlfriend.
I'd owned my PowerBook for maybe 3 years when I discovered Quicksilver. That kept me busy for a while. Then I started wrapping shell scripts into apps with Platypus, and launching them with Quicksilver. Installed TypeIt4Me to make notes easier. About a year ago I started doing much of my work in the command line. 4 years later, I'm still 'tweaking' the system, wringing out as much efficiency as possible. Given what I do on it (sys admin), the limiting factor is not the CPU, but file manipulation, batching, networking, etc. and those can be tweaked as long as I'm willing to learn new things.
Wrists killing you? Not in 2 weeks. Learn Dvorak. [dvzine.org]
Re:On linux... (Score:2, Insightful)
Looks like whoever moderated your post as "Troll" happens to be a Mac fanboy.
Your argument, however, is valid. I've been fairly accustomed to setting up my Linux or BSD boxes the way I like them, and from time to time I backtrack and try out other possibilities to see if there happens to be something that might work better.
Whenever I'm working on a Mac, I find it frustrating that the interface just does not allow you to customise it that much. I often have the feeling Apple are saying "You will think outside the box in the way WE tell you to, dammit!".
A case in point is their awful, awful windowing system, which by default will pop up a window of the exact size calculated to show you the least useful amount of whatever you're looking at. So you have to use your mouse/trackpad and click or drag it up to a usable size. And no sir, you may NOT have a hotkey to maximise the window, because that's not how you're supposed to work with OS X...
With or without the trial of Norton Antivirus...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that with or without the trial of Norton Antivirus on the disk...?