skelooth

The victim machine:
core2 duo 2.13ghz, 2gb ram, 7950gt nvidia card, sata hard drive and dvd drive.

The process....

As to not confuse grub (the boot manager that comes with most linux distros), I opted to install windows xp pro first. From the time I put the cd in to the time I booted into my desktop was literally just short of a full hour. Upon booting into windows xp very little of my hardware was recognized... not even my on board lan. I tossed in the driver cd that comes with the mobo, and after about FIVE restarts all of the drivers from it were installed properly. Then I installed the nvidia driver and gave it yet another restart.

Load time for xp pro... meh, about a minute, maybe a pinch less. Nothing to really complain about.

Fonts on xp pro look very slightly blurred at 2 vertical lines on the xp. I'm not really sure why. It's a very subtle thing, but it's there, and like a princess sleeping on a mattress w/ a pea under it.... I feel it.

XP interface, meh, everyone knows that already.

XP Performance: Fantastic. Still takes a few moments for the task bar to load up but near instantaneous. Only crashed once during a game of HL2

--------------

ubuntu.... I boot off the CD. The live version springs on with no problems. I double click the install icon and go through the motions.... but it crashed when I tried to repartition the hard drive.

I rebooted the live ubuntu cd using the NODMA flag this time. Install went through fine taking around 25 minutes or so in entirety.

Upon booting up everything was plug and play except for my video card... which took some trickery, logging out of X, installing drivers through a command line and manually editing the x config file.

Load time for ubuntu.... instantaneous. The splash screen goes so fast it looks like a flash.

Desktop environment: Amazing. Linux already has it's own "Vista like window manager" called beryl, which is still in beta. It installed quick and easy... now my windows wibble, wobble, fade, zoom around, and move around on a 3d cube of virtual desktops. It's VERY cool. I've already been spoiled by 3d accellerated desktop environments. Very responsive too, and uses about 2% of my CPU when performing regular things like opening folders, dragging windows, etc.

Performance, it's like load times don't exist. Nothing has crashed, and I have a full suite of programming, graphics and communications software already.

Obviously the huge downfall of linux.... no windows games unless i want to use the emulator... but i'd much rather just use real windows for games...

That's my review of installing both operating systems My Suite mate is singing (****ING AGAIN WTF IS HE IN A GAY BOY BAND?!?!??!) and I feel like I want to shoot myself in the head.

__________________
http://loseover100lbs.com/misc-f7.html