From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,89226195d95fba21 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Operating Systems Date: 1997/07/26 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 259040869 References: <5r9m5a$9uj$1@cf01.edf.fr> <5rcimf$a3j$1@news.nyu.edu> Organization: New York University Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Richard says <> Richard, this is quite wrong, what you say is true of Win95, but very much not true of NT. One of the huge problems with NT is that it does not have plug and play, and cannot definitely figure out what your configuration is and support everything you have. Last time (as you know if you remember back) I tried to install NT on my notebook (A Tecra 720), NT could not find anything (no PCMCIA support, no sound support, incomplete video support, no support of the internal modem etc.) By contrast installing Linux on the 720 was fairly straigntforward. Your milage will differ a lot on different hardware. Even Win 95 can have trouble (I still have no proper sound on my Tecra, ever since some kind game deleted the specialized Toshiba driver that came with the system, standard Win/95 just can't find the sound interface). But to say that NT is much easier to install than Linux just does not match everyone's experience by any means. No doubt when the new version of NT comes out with P&P, things will be better, but by then Linux will also be much easier to install. In fact, as far as I know you (Richard) have never installed Linux from a Redhat CD ROM onto a PC -- it is much smoother than you imagine. Experiences on Alpha are pretty irrelevant, since the Linux there is not nearly so well developed as the PC version.