While we're on the topic of how bad Windows is, here's what happened to me today. Well, I decided I'm tired of dial-up and I'm going to get a cable modem. My only choice here is Roadrunner, but I've heard that Linux and Roadrunner get along OK once it is set up. So, I went to Wal Mart and picked up a NIC. Surprisingly, it's a Linksys Everywhere 10/100 Fast Ethernet card. I sort of wondered if it would work, but I figured that Linksys is a reputable brand, so bought it. I took it home and looked at the floppy that came with it. It has a Linux directory and it explained that it uses the Tulip driver and came with a version of it. I figured I'd try it out with the Linux kernel. Once I rebuilt my kernel to include the Tulip driver, Linux picked up the card right off. I wouldn't have had to rebuild, but I tend to strip my kernel down to the bare essentials as soon as I get a Linux system installed. anyway, no problems picking up the card, and all my other devices work fine. We'll see once I actually have that cable modem to test it out. Then, came setting up the card in Windows 95. Yes, I still use 95 because of my computer's age. Anyway, Windows came up asking me to insert the driver disk for the card. I did, and it couldn't find the drivers. I hit browse and showed it where it was supposed to look and then it wanted the Windows 95 CD. Of course, I had to once again hit browse because it couldn't find what it wants. Once it finally had the right directory, it started telling me that every file it was trying to copy was older than what I already had and did I want to keep the newer version. I told it yes in all cases. Ok, fine, now what? Well, Nortan Antivirus suddenly came up telling me that I needed to verify my license. I have had a legal copy of Norton Antivirus for just under a year, and had never seen this before. Cursing under my breath, I got online and hit continue. Norton then told me that I had exceeded the maximum install count for this computer. So, the simple act of installing a NIC made Norton think it was unlicensed? I'd heard horror stories about this happening to Windows XP users, but never heard of Norton doing it. Oh, did I mention that my sound card no longer works? It has an IRQ conflict, and all the possible IRQS that are listed for it conflict. So, in short, Linux handled the NIC without a hitch and Windows threw up! That's funny when the Plug and Play standard is supposed to be perfected in windows and lagging hopelessly behind in Linux. Sounds to me as if it's the other way around. Well, I feel much better now that I've ranted about Windows. Now, let's all relax and hope that Linux will soon put Microsoft in its place.
