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Posted by T.C. on February 17, 2007, 8:28 pm
Please log in for more thread options On 13 Feb 2007 15:57:30 -0800, zwsdotcom@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > drivers) - Windows XP is clearly not designed to do that - I wouldn't
>
> Windows XP is DESIGNED NOT to do that, not simply "not designed to do
> it". Observe that the generic WinNT kernel on a Windows install disk
> can run on any machine that is capable of loading Windows. It is only
> once the OS is installed that the kernel and driver set is customized
> to the system, and intentionally so.
>
> > know ANY recent operating system that can handle this task (even a
> > simple aged DOS would require different CD-ROM drivers to start with)
>
> There are generic ATAPI drivers that work with most drives under DOS.
Call me a believer in Murphy, but with one exception all my CD-ROMs
required dedicated drivers from the manufacturer when I was still
using DOS
>
> A properly configured Linux distribution can boot on all sorts of
> wildly different hardware. Even a Linux distro that has not been
> specially configured will at least boot, though some tweakage may be
> necessary to get it fully operational (network, sound card, etc).
You have a valid point there - the Knoppix CD is a good example for a
system that can adapt to quite a wide range of hardware (Murphy again:
I know a couple of buddies that had problems though) - some others
don't fare that well though: I was never able to install the most
recent Ubuntu as a VirtualPC instance - the installer couldn't handle
the S3-Graphics emulation regardless of what switches I tried - not
being able to run the installer I couldn't even start to install
Ubuntu...
...on the other hand there's not 300+ different distributions of Linux
for nothing - whatever flexible the theoretical design of a generic
Linux might be, for quite many people interested in Linux it still
seems the first obstacle is finding a distribution suitable for their
respective hardware (and yeah, I know the 300+ distros are not all
about different hardware-issues)
BTW: the Knoppix CD with it's hardware-detection on boot is about the
only OS I ever tried that in fact is even slower in booting than my
Windows XP ;)
T.C.
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