Linux news

2007 07 05

Windows Vista Still Sabotages MBR, Discourages Linux Setups

90 Days of Vista - The Beginning

Excluding my troubles in dual booting with Fedora 7 and recovering my linux boot loader, I installed Windows Vista twice. The first time was to see how much of my hardware would get recognised, and to discover how many of my Windows XP drivers would work in Vista. The second time around, I got it all right.

http://s5h.net/u?zffc2
I saw another story yesterday. Vista would just bitch about and mess about with dual-booting time after time, with different setups and distros. Defective by design and probably deliberate. Related: Geek in Paradise - Vista Upgrade

As the HP Advisor disc was in the process of finishing, the machine froze solid. After giving it 5 minutes of no disk activity, I reset the machine to be greeted by a lovely blinking cursor. I put the Vista disc in and booted into a repair installation, where I ran the Repair tool. My hunch was proved correct when it returned a corrupted MBR, which it had fixed. Thinking all was well, I rebooted to be greeted with a black screen (no blinking cursor). Well, there's something more going on so I rebooted into the repair tool and let it do it's thing. This time, it found a Corrupted Partition table which it then said it repaired. Awesome! Next reboot was greeted by the same black screen, so I figured the other partition was corrupt as well and let the repair tool run again and fix the partition table again. Reboot, same thing...

http://s5h.net/u?z60ce
Vista scoots to new boot, but it's still kinda rooted

While Microsoft would like the world to believe that anyone running Windows has no need of any other operating system, that attitude doesn?t cut much mustard with many of its users. Why settle for one OS when your PC is easily capable of running two or more? [...] One of the more questionable tactics that Microsoft has implemented in Vista is to automatically overwrite any existing MBR during the installation process without asking if you mind or giving you an option to back up. Microsoft says that the Windows installation system can't intelligently interrogate an existing non-MS MBR, although such features are quite common in the install routine for other OSes. It also argues that an "official" Vista MBR is required for security features -- such as measured boot, which works with Trusted Platform Module (TPM)-enabled chips to check that the OS hasn't been hacked or altered each time it boots -- to work correctly.

http://s5h.net/u?z7892
FLOSS Weekly 14: Jeremy Allison of Samba

'In the section of the interview from around 33m30s to 39m00 Jeremy Allison reports how he was told that the Microsoft team implementing SMB2 were ordered to "f**k with Samba".'

http://s5h.net/u?z59e9
Jury Hears Microsoft Competition Suit

A judge on Friday told jurors they must accept as fact that a federal court found in 1999 that Microsoft holds a monopoly over computer operating systems and that it restricted computer manufacturers' ability to use competing systems. [...] She said she'll show that the company used its monopoly power to exclude competition and control prices and that it conspired with other companies to restrain trade, maintaining what she called a chokehold on software competitors and computer manufacturers. "It isn't illegal to be successful," Conlin said in opening remarks. "We applaud that. ... But you can't freeze out competitors and punish and retaliate against people who cooperate with competitors. Microsoft did all that and more." Conlin warned jurors that she would say some unflattering things about Microsoft and its billionaire founder Bill Gates, who serves as company chairman. [...] Conlin's first 3 1/2 hours of opening arguments delved deeply into computer industry history and how Microsoft fought off competitors attempting to design rival software.

http://s5h.net/u?z65e