Why I hate Computers!

Why I hate computers (especially MS Windows)

or

Why can’t things just work?

We have 5 computers in our house, all networked of course.  2 are laptops (one ~6 years old, one about 1.5 years).  2 run Windows XP Home, 1 was recently upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP-pro, 1 running Fedora 10 (my primary machine), and 1 running Vista (HP Laptop).  The amount of time it takes to keep these running is well beyond reason.  Lets start with the Windows 2K to XP upgrade:

Earlier this year the old HP all-in-one printer was dying, so we picked up a new HP J6480 networked all-in-one printer.  Nice machine, print cartridges last longer and are slightly cheaper than the old one.  Wired and wireless networking are great because it takes the burden off the old Windows 2000 Athlon XP 1600+machine.  Unfortunately the new software is geared for XP and Vista.  Basic printing works on 2000, but the “document manager” software won’t install.  Not wanting to wrestle with Vista on older hardware, we decided to update it to XP Pro (OEM).   What I didn’t know was that the OEM disk couldn’t be used to perform an upgrade.  Luckily we already had a 320GB disk installed split into several partitions.  So, why not set this up as a dual-boot 2k/XP?  No problem, install XP on the empty partition F:, right?  Install seemed to go mostly OK, but had trouble re-booting.  After much wrestling and unprintable language, it turns out that XP doesn’t like to be installed above a certain sector count.  Net result, while 2k is still on drive C:, its useless because XP has overwritten a couple of key files.  Luckily I had an image of the Windows 2000 C: drive prior to starting the upgrade (always make image backups prior to major/risky upgrades!!!).

So now its up and running from drive F:, but in the usual Windows excentricity, (Vista does this also), trying to migrate existing user accounts results in duplicate directories.  Now we have folders under “Documents and Settings” (what idiot dreamed that up instead of simply “Users (Vista)” or “Home (UNIX)”???) named “username.machine” parallel to the original “username” directory.   At least the printer now works properly with all the scanner and fax features available.

Then there’s our teenage son’s PC.  Not quite bleeding edge, but not shabby with the AMD 64X2 and 8800GT video card, and XP Home (OEM edition).  For whatever reason, the HP printer software “slows the machine down terribly”.  Why, I have no clue, but this is his computer and its his job to maintain it.  Its most likely an issue with one of the many games he’s installed.  Mason has grown up with computers, one of his favorite toys when he was barely able to walk was an old keyboard that he pulled around the house like a pull-toy.  He learned to read at age 3 mostly because of the educational computer games – I can still hear the music in my head from one of them.

His MSI 939 Motherboard had a bad floppy drive port (not that anyone cares anymore), and the 2nd IDE port seemed to also be toast as connecting anything to it would lock up the computer.   So “Santa Claus” brought a new XFX 750a motherboard, RAM, CPU, and a SATA drive.  While the 750a is supposed to support Hybrid SLI, apparently this is only true for Vista and very specific video cards, the 8800 GT isn’t one of them.  We also had trouble getting this combination to boot until we tried placing the 8800 GT card in the second PCIEx16 slot (slot 4) instead of the first.  The XFX manuals are weak to say the least, and the english is terrible.

While I’ve been using Linux since the early 90’s when it came in a box of 5.25″ floppies (SLS), and I definitely prefer it, keeping up with Fedora is taking some of the fun out of it.  Every upgrade involves new headaches with booting or Postgresql databases, or whatever.  Maybe I’d be better off with CentOS or Ubuntu?  Each distro has its own strengths and weakness, maybe its better to stick with familiarity.

As if our own PC’s aren’t enough hassle, we end up supporting other family members also.  Upgrading my monther-in-law’s PC this summer was a total fiasco due to XP’s hardware picky-ness.  Now, for reasons I can’t explain, she has 2 PC’s, one 1GHz Athlon XP, and a 2.xGHz P4.  Since she wanted to use both, it was only logical to network them using my favorite Linksys wireless-G WRT-54GS router and WMP54GS PCI card.  Usually a fairly simple task, but the latest Linksys s/w is so oversimplified it couldn’t deal with the Westell 6100 DSL-modem/router combination that insisted on using the default 192.168.1 subnet.  We had to change the router to use 192.168.0 to act as a gateway to the DSL modem.  That was bad enough, but the wireless computer would lock up as soon as it reached the point where it was enabling the wireless network.  After several frustrating hours, I disabled the Panda firewall (installed in place of Symantic by a local computer “expert”), and then it worked fine.  So what should have been a 2 hour job took at least 8 hours because of all the hardware/software quirks.

If I didn’t burn so much time & $ on Computers, and maintaining this web site, maybe I could actually finish some wood projects?