...for the most part, anyway.
In the span of a week, I went through 2 upgrades. One less-voluntary, one very voluntary.
The XBox fall updated arrived (And it is interesting, at least, but I didn't have much time to poke around yet). I didn't even notice it was happening.
And I upgraded the OS on my laptop.
What a painful, downright miserable experience (and I know that Linux ain't better, nor is Mac OS X. Alas) that was.
Making backups. Grabbing drivers for graphics card, printer, and DVB-T stick. Checking backups. Preparing install media. Gathering the assorted tools that I cannot live without (fortunately, really, really few by now). Verify download of the OS image. Make sure everything is backed up. Creating install media.
The installation of Windows 7 is, fortunately, a breeze.
But that ain't he biggie. The biggie is getting my system back into a workable state. Even though I was quite prepared, I spent half a day installing drivers, OS updates, tools, more drivers, productivity software (office suites, and suchlike), even more drivers.
And the half dozen reboots in between.
Of course, comparing a specialized system (the gaming / multimedia console) to a generalist (the PC) is unfair. I won't ever be able to write a letter on my console, but on the other hand it is quite less of a hassle for me.
And I shudder at the thought doing the PC OS install tango every year, or year and a half, with a major update in hardware (I had to deal, way back when, with nVidia and ATi driver issues, since I switched the latter for the first, boy was that annoying!).
And the worst, in my opinion, is that the situation on the PC won't ever get close, since the PC has an enormous number of permutation regarding hardware, software, and drivers.
Simply said: I don't have the time, nor the will, to deal with this sort of effort anymore.
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Uh, what?
Look under "Optional Downloads" in Windows Update. It has nearly every driver ever known to man in there. Two clicks, one reboot and everything is fixed and up to date.
- If you want to be reaaally precise.
Mind, I installed my first Windows (3.1), when Windows Update was way, way out there, and I'm kinda set in my ways in that regard. Besides, if I install a system from scratch, I might as well grab the most current driver (since WU, due to the approval process, lags behind).
And thanks to the vagaries of hardware manufacturing, the maker of my laptop's touchpad ain't even in the touchpad business anymore (fortunately, that one was on my HD already) since September 2007.
Further, only the drivers *submitted* by hardware vendors are available on WU. MSFT doesn't go out of their way to procure drivers. That ain't their business.
I must admit that I like being able to simply buy a game... and KNOW it will work with no effort on my part.
I don't know, man. Upgrading your distro can be pretty breezy in most cases these days, right down to driver support. You just won't be playing many games on it. :D
euhm, what?
I've upgraded my install 4 times in the last 2 years ( 6 month releases ftw ) and I've never encountered any problems whatsoever... plus you don't have to download any drivers at all since they're all included in the kernel :-) and you don't have to download any sofware manually as your package manager does it all for you... if you've had problems upgrading your distro, then you're either doing it wrong or using a really crappy linux... ( I recommend Linux Mint which is an advanced version of Ubuntu with WAY more features out of the box and supposedly the next version will have steam out-of-the-box :-) )
Yeah, I can certainly understand that. PC gaming is a rather nerdy circle (due to the technology knowledge needed to maintain a computer at top performance for most of the time). It becomes elitist with those who whine about "casual gaming". But that's a whole 'nother rant...
@Zyrshnikashnu & mistic
Watch the Ubuntu forums after a new release. Or the OpenSUSE forums. Or the Fedora forums...
Together with the joy of NetworkManager not being able to support WEP encryption outside of a DHCP setup for a while (that one got me big time. God was I annoyed), the need to recompile kernel modules with every kernel update, unless the Kernel changes the API yet again in a minor release breaking your modules entirely, if you are unlucky, and the frantic checking if the hardware you got is actually supported in the first place (which is way less than you think. Most of Windows' bloat is drivers, ferchrissakes, just to get a usable system going).
Then the kludges like NDISwrapper, or FOOMATIC.
Thanks, I pass.
Also mind that I ain't bashing the PC! I'm merely pointing out that things are harder than they have to be (While aptitude goes a long way, the deb-packaging system ain't free from circular dependencies either), but that this difficulty comes with the territory of being a generalist machine. If that wasn't clear enough, I apologize, and will see to amend my post to make that clearer.
But truth be told: Things have gotten better all around. I mean, I spent half a day getting my Win7 up to speed. It used to be 2 days with Windows XP. While not a lot of progress, it is an improvement (considering that the OSes themselves become more useful, too, what with global search, Aero Peek or Expose or Beryl-Compiz, and such like).