More reasons I like Linux

Today I had the dubious pleasure of installing some updates and new software on the one pure Windows machine still around in the house.  Also, two nights ago I had another dubious pleasure of backing up another family member's laptop disk drive because the screen died (long story - not really relevant).  That machine has Vista on it, but that's really not important.

I used a SATA/IDE-to-USB converter device to do the backup, and other than Windows halting the copies on every file it couldn't quite handle, things went fairly well.  I was going to try to put Windows on my Everex laptop (that runs Linux) so this other person could use it (they are Linux-illiterate, despite my best efforts... :-), but the strangest things happened.

I put in the other laptop drive, and even though it tried for about 15-20 minutes, the Windows on-board recovery failed.  Now, this should be no surprise because my Everex and their Toshiba are substantially different hardware bases, with different devices and so on, and most laptops come with tailored installations to match the hardware that accompanies them.

Then I put the original disk back in and lo and behold, none of my Windows installation CDs would run.  They all got to that first step, "Setup is inspecting your computer for anything that might kill it," (okay, it didn't really say that, but it was the usual Windows Setup prompt), and then the screen went dark and stayed there.  I haven't really had the heart to check into why a nice laptop like that, which came with Ubuntu Linux until I installed CentOS (Linux) over it and which runs perfectly, would choke on installing Windows.  Truth be told, I don't care, but it's nice to know that my awesome Linux laptop won't even allow Windows to install on it.

More to the point:

Among other things, this desktop I was upgrading had AVG anti-virus on it (which I kind of like - it's free and works well enough) clamoring for an update to the virus definition file, NVidia's Network Access Manager complaining that it was turned off, Windows Automatic Update telling me it had some updates to install (I don't ever let things like that run on their own - too risky IMNSHO) and ZoneAlarm, which I had decided to uninstall.

I told the Windows automatic update to go ahead, update me.  I uninstalled ZoneAlarm, which went well, except for two things:

1) Something else went wrong and I got one of those lovely "A program has crashed....Do you want to send a bug report to Microsoft?" windows, for which program I don't know (and they don't say).

2) The ZoneAlarm uninstall wanted me to reboot.

Fine.  I told the bug report window to go away, and it did.  However, the automatic update hung, hard.  It stopped at 32% complete without ever downloading anything.

I admit it, I kind of floundered on this one.  I tried running Windows Update manually, but that didn't do so well with the other one hung.  I turned off the automatic updates, but that didn't un-hang the hung one.  I tried to use the NVidia NAM's anti-hacking-only feature, but that didn't seem to help, so I figured, that's it, it's going and I'll worry about it all after the reboot.

So, since NAM doesn't have an uninstall command or feature, I went to the control panel and started to remove it that way.

That hung the whole machine.

Other than being an annoyance, this wasn't much of a hassle (had to reboot anyway), so I just rebooted the machine with the reset switch.  And, to Windows' credit, it came up just fine.

(Yes, I'm running XP SP2 on that box - it does well enough for these purposes.)

NAM was not gone, so I removed it again and that needed another reboot.

Now I'm getting annoyed, and I'll go into that in a little bit, there's not much of the gripe left.

With NAM gone, I went back to a manual Windows Update run, and after a fair length of sitting silent, it finally started actually downloading and installing 23 updates.  What they were I don't really know, or care, much.  I've been using Windows more or less regularly since 1995 (at work) and 1996 (at home), and I have a fair amount of experience tweaking it using an official XP book and a couple of "Tips and Tricks" books, but I couldn't begin to tell you what update KB234678234 is (I fudged the number, but it could be any of them).  All I know is that, without actually going through and reading the descriptions, those 23 updates were "Windows Update" or "Windows Security Update" and maybe an Internet Explorer update - too bland for me.

It was really slow, too.  The update took about another 10 minutes, which, for 23 small updates is a LONG time.

Then I had to reboot again.

Well, whoop-dee-do, Mr. Mark, what's yer eff-in problem with that?

If that's all you're used to, then you probably don't know that there's a much better system out there - it's called LINUX.

We've had a flurry of bug fixes and other updates to various parts of the system over the last couple of weeks, including a substantial kernel update.  For those of you who don't know it, the kernel is the heart of the OS - it's what makes everything else work.  It is also what most Linux people think of as Linux itself - everything else is added on, mostly from the Free Software Foundation, which supports the standard command set that comes with virtually every Linux distribution.

Back to the point, there were ten notices in my deleted email about updates, seven of which were for my current CentOS release (5.4), the last of which was the kernel update.

I'm a command-line kind of person, having been in the business since before graphical user interfaces, like Windows, and as much as the GUIs have made a lot of the computing world easier, there are some things about running computers that just cry for the power and detail of the command line.  I believe that systems administration, even for home use, is one of them.

This is not to fault the GUI system updater - it's fine, if you like that sort of thing.  As it happens, I learned the command line method first, and it's so simple, clear and informative, I just use it, with pleasure.

For each of those seven updates, all of which included more than one area to be updated except the kernel update, I happily ran the command (yum update, if you're wondering), watched it whip up a fast list of what had an update available and then waited for my typed "y" to proceed, at which point it downloaded each update, ran the transaction checks, updated the modules and finished with a note about success.  Quickly.

No reboot required.  Technically, I didn't have to reboot after the kernel update, either, but if I wanted the new kernel, then, yes, that was necessary.  It hasn't happened in a month or two, so I figured why not.

Actually, I went and read the release notes, and there were enough important security issues fixed that I figured it was worth it.

Rebooting a Linux system is not something to be taken lightly.  It's a little more time consuming that a Windows reboot appears to be (the actual settling down of the OS and any run-time apps like your antivirus takes a lot longer than just getting to your desktop), but once I'm logged back in, it's done for the next month or six or however long before I decide to take it down again.

There were no cryptic symbolic names to decode - I know the packages that were updated because they are listed out by name and I've been working in and using UNIX/Linux systems long enough to know most of them by heart.  Now, this is as opposed to the Windows updates, which are all named KB#########, or something like that, which means that NO one outside of Microsoft knows what they are without reading the accompanying documentation.  In Linux, this is not required.

There's another thing I noticed during the Windows Update I ran.  While the updater is downloading and installing the updates, it occupies a normal sized window in the middle of the screen which you can move but not minimize.  Since I don't have the add-on to Windows that allows for multiple workspaces (virtual desktop screens) that happens to be a standard feature with both the GNOME and KDE GUIs of Linux, that window just sits there, staring back at me until it is done and tells me to reboot.

Feh.

After rebooting, I went to update the MS Office XP installed on that machine, except that there no longer appears to be an automated Office update process unless you get the Microsoft Update.  Ick, no thanks.

So, what did I just say?

I like Linux's simple, convenient update process because it is simple, easy to use, unobtrusive and, unless it involves a kernel change, updates on my desktop without forcing me to reboot.

How could anyone complain about that on top of a cost-free software system for the stand-alone desktop computer?

Not me.