OddThinking

I kinda like the minimal approach. I’m not sure whether they’re trying to be all things to all people. And you can hardly expect them to pimp Skype above Google Talk surely?

The Norton Anti-virus component “Includes 6-month subscription to protection updates”. Which should turn into a nice little earner for Symantec.

But I agree there needs to be a font in there, specifically a decent unicode font.

And seeing as I’m blogpimpin’, here’s my list of Windows essentials

Or you run Linux, and just say apt-get install $laundrylist and then let the computer thrash around for a while without having to babysit it. :-) (If you run something other than a Debian-ish or FedoraCore-ish distro, the command differs, but is similar.)

Not that this way doesn’t have its own disadvantages. For home users, MacOS Ⅹ is much better yet.

Installing software or drivers on Windows always struck me as roughly 27× more effort and trouble than necessary. (Well, like just about everything else about the system, but anyway.)

Whoa! I just had another look and I see that they have an option pack with Google Talk, RealPlayer, Trillian and a Image Gallery.

Did I miss that the first time, or did they add these features in the past 12 hours? Maybe they have read this post!

Alastair,

As long as they keep it easy to add option packs, I think this system benefits from having good coverage. Ideally, I could install all my software from one source, and then walk away, leaving a workable machine – especially for a family member or as someone selling a box to the public. Microsoft is improving steadily at installability of the basic OS, patches and drivers. Google has an opportunity to take over the next layer of non-specialty applications.

My bad for not predicting Google Talk over Skype.

Aristotle,

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was surprised at a claim of easier installability on Linux than Windows – especially with a cryptic command line involved.

In any case, I see a large number of Windows OS installations in my future… Google may well have a part in that.

Cryptic?! Now please.

There is one word there which is apt-get, that’s the proper name of the package manager – okay, you have to memorise that once. Then there is another word in there which is install. I don’t know how that can be construed as cryptic. And there’s $laundrylist, which is a shell variable, which I used metasyntactically, that is, it’s supposed to stand in for, well, your laundry list of programs; I assumed that, with you being a programmer, this would be understood.

In case that was unclear, what you’d actually type is something of the form apt-get install mozilla-firefox mozilla-thunderbird gvim mplayer gaim acroread flash-player. If that’s still cryptic, well then all I can conclude is that you’re calling the command line cryptic on principle.

In which case you can still use something like Synaptic to browse the repository graphically and pick packages. (But if this is something that has to be repeated often, as is the premise of Google Pack, I’d have a list of packages I need and would be done typing before you’ve even found the first one to select.)

Aristotle,

I assumed that, with you being a programmer, this would be understood. […] you’re calling the command line cryptic on principle

Yeah, I guess you are not being unfair here. I did suggest Google Pack would be useful for someone technical setting up PCs for someone non-technical, so it is fair to assume that command lines aren’t too scary in that scenario.

In a past life, I was involved in building a Standard Operating Environment (SOE) for new employees, and when machines were handed off across projects.

We used Ghost, which would probably beat apt-get in speed if you were doing 10 identical machines a day. For the low numbers we were doing, I think apt-get would have been better than Ghost – slower per machine, but more adaptable for a variety of machine specs. (Windows doesn’t adapt well to finding it is running on a different motherboard than the one it was expecting.)

On Tuesday, I tried to remember the URL of a test server. I’d probably typed in the name 30 times in 2005, but I hadn’t used since early December. Was is projectNameAdminTest or TestAdmin? Neither were responding. I asked a nearby senior developer. He’s probably typed in the name 300 times, but he hadn’t used it since early November. Was it TstAdm? Or AdmTst? He took over the keyboard to try to type it in to see if his muscle memory would help. AdminTst? TestAdm? No luck, so we looked it up in the documentation. The URL turned out to be http://projectNameWebTest/admin.

My point is that I am genuinely going to forget appget (err.. aptget?) before I use it again, and remembering “flash-player” (not flashplayer, flash_player, flashPlayer, fplayer, etc.) is unlikely too. If I was using it every day, that would change matters, but I have to go through the help page every time I use xcopy, so what chance does apt-get have?

By the way, Synaptic looks pretty good, based on a few screenshots.

[One bit I don’t get about synaptic and apt-get: Do they run as a daemon and download updates automatically? I guess apt-get could be cron-ified.]

My point is that I am genuinely going to forget appget (err.. aptget?) before I use it again,

That might explain our differences in preference in some things. :-)

remembering “flash-player” (not flashplayer, flash_player, flashPlayer, fplayer, etc.) is unlikely too.

(Note: I made that package name up; what it’s really called, I don’t know.) Really, the only options would be “flash-player” or “flashplayer,” since package names are always lowercase, never contain underscores and avoid abbreviations. And they tend to be liberally hyphenated, so “flashplayer” is less likely. In other words, you can see why I made up this particular package name rather than one of the other possible variations…

Did I mention that I love things which follow consistent conventions? :-)

Do they run as a daemon and download updates automatically? I guess apt-get could be cron-ified.

No and yes.

Don’t let me give the wrong impression. I do like the option to use a command-line – it is great for scripting and when you become and expert. Similarly, I do like the option of keyboard shortcuts in GUIs; if I use the tool for more than 30 minutes a day, you’ll find me sticking to the keyboard far more, because my memory starts kicking in.

Did I mention that I love things which follow consistent conventions? 🙂

Me too. As a result, I don’t love much! 🙁

Norton Ghost vs apt-get eh?

Interesting. I reckon there’s likely a bootp auto-installer for debian. I’m making that up, but even without looking up google I’d say it’d exist, mainly because redhat’s got one (kickstart or something).

Norton Ghost might win in making identical machines, but in making slightly different machines (eg: having different hostnames, ssh keys, etc.) you’d probably need a lot more time in post-configuration with norton ghost, whereas debian’s excellent configuration management system would make it a breeze, and that’s not to mention the updates.

Incidentally, Linux tends to work a lot better with ghost than Windows (which needs identical hardware to work properly with ghost). To move from my old box to my new box involved ghosting the drive image and booting up. Windows would probably have been a lot more difficult.

Also, the mac’s install system is… creepy. Am I the only one who thinks that?