It's rumored some Windows users may 'upgrade' to Vista7 soon, given the
Microsoft sales campaign and build up.
Furthermore, as everyone hates Vista (which Microsoft has already told
us), we can assume the poor Windows upgrader will be running XP.
OK, what does the Windows user do to upgrade from XP to Vista7 ?
Step 1) Buy Vista7. This process involves wading thru all the different
versions.
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25936/1231/
Retail prices for Windows 7 in Australia will be broadly similar to
those charged for Vista.
Home Premium will be $A299,
Professional will be $A449,
and Ultimate $A469.
Upgrade prices will be $A199, $A399 and $A429 respectively.
Let's assume the user is running a cracked XP, and wants the best version.
*kerching*, that will be $A469, or about what you'll pay for a *complete*
brand new Dell Netbook with Linux pre installed, *and* still save money,
$114 in fact.
Dell:$355.433 AUD
Mini 10v
Intel Atom Processor N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
UBUNTU 8.04 (Standard Edition)
120GB, 2.5inch, 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
1GB1 DDR2 SDRAM2
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?
c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Step 2) Backup *all* your Windows data:
We know there is no simple 'plug in Vista7 and click 'upgrade', so he
will have to find his data, which is usually located anywhere the Windows
app wants it, and save it off the machine somehow. Good luck there.
Don't miss finding anything important now!
Step 3) Install Vista7:
Assuming the Windows user doesn't know about Linux, and still wants to
waste his $A469. he will need to install it, or pay to have someone
install it for him, because there is no simple 'upgrade path'.
Ok, it installed easily enough, and considering the cost, it damn well
should. Lets hope the 'activation' goes smoothly, and that Microsoft
isn't having a bad activation server day, or our poor Vista7 sucker, will
be having one also.
Step 4) Re install your applications:
And prey it works, because this upgrade fron XP to Vista7 is a great
opportunity for the Windows software vendors to upgrade *their* software
also.
I hope you've put aside a little extra money for this possibility, or
will you be trolling the warez groups to get an updated version of the
old software you ran under XP ?
I understand why you do it. To have the same software any Linux user can
have for free, you're going to need to pay thousands of dollars. You
don't have the money to pay for Windows software so you'll need to steal
it. Besides, it's not like you're the only one, everyone else does it as
well .. right ?
Step 5) Re install your data:
This step can be anywhere from a day to infinity later, depending on how
the previous steps worked out. Assuming it all worked ok, you'll also
need to re configure your software for the right colors, styles, themes
etc.
You have finished, and it's all working as well as it was under XP, but
you're left with a hollow feeling inside because you just forked out all
this money and or time, and it's "working as well as it was under XP".
You may wonder why you bothered ?
LINUX:
I just upgraded from Gentoo Linux to Fedora 11 Linux, and this is how I
did it.
1) Obtain Fedora 11:
The cost was the cost of the download, which would be about $2 given my
Internet access costs. Burn the DVD on my old Gentoo box, no problem.
Fedora is GPL'd, so I can burn all the copies I like, and give them to my
friends. All perfectly 100% legal.
No 'activation' required.
2) Backup *all* my Linux user data:
That's easy, everything is in /home/tp
3) Backup *all* my Linux system config data:
Easy, everything is in /etc
Just saved it all to a hard disk on the old system.
3) Install Fedora 11.
Unlike Vista7, I can boot Fedora and try it out first on my hardware, and
then if I'm happy, I just click 'install to hard disk", which I did.
After the fast install, I selected the PAE kernel as I have 8Gb ram, and
the Nvidia proprietary driver etc. Nothing too difficult there.
4) Re install my data:
Easy, load all the /home/tp data that was backed up into my new /home/tp
I didn't need anything from the old /etc, but it's handy in case I want
to refer to it at any time.
5) Re install my applications.
I just selected the apps I use in the Fedora package manager and clicked
on apply, and they were all automatically downloaded and installed. No
fees, no passwords, no activation, as they are all FREE. Here are just a
few:-
GoogleEarth
Firefox 3.5 (browser)
Openoffice (Office Sweet)
Gimp (Image manipulation, like photoshop)
FirewallBuilder (admin remote firewalls)
gEDA (schematic capture)
PCB (layout printed circuit boards)
Xchat (IRC Client)
Liferea (RSS feed reader)
Pan (newsreader)
Qcad (cad)
VirtualBox (for running virtual machines)
Amarok (audio jukebox)
Mplayer (play any video types)
FGFS (flight simulator)
Finished. My old Gentoo install dated back to 2006,it had a lot of cruft,
a few problems, and I was tired of it.
The new Fedora 11 is easy to use and admin. It has all the latest Linux
stuff including Ext4 or even BTRFS if I want it.
Cost was $2, and time was a few hours to install Fedora 11 and copy my
data across etc. Fedora 11 also required about 800 MB in updates which it
did overnight.
Fedora also actively tells me if there are updates and whether they are
program or security updates, and what they do. I click to approve or
ignore them.
Now this is a Linux advocacy group, and I'm a Linux advocate, so my
preference is obvious, but ask yourself which OS was the least trouble to
install, which one offered more, yet cost less, and which one will be
easiest to admin over the coming years ?
Now is the time to make that choice, upgrade from XP to Linux or vista7 ?
--
C.O.L.A Charter:-
"For discussion of the benefits of GNU/Linux compared to other
operating systems."
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