playing DVDs with totem

[Patrick]

Alan wrote:

> The claim that "Windows is easier to install than Linux" is also pretty
> bogus.  I spent the weekend getting Windows XP Por installed on a machine
> for my wife.  It was my old desktop machine that had run Linux with no
> problems for the last year.  Windows could not find the Ethernet driver,
> the sound card driver, or the correct video driver.  I had to download
> what I could find.  With Linux I can find out what something is without
> opening the case.  If Windows does not have a driver for a device, it
> gives you no clues as to what it is.  You have to open up the box.  (And
> then hope you can find a driver on the vendor's site.  Not always
> possible.)  With Linux, all those devices "just worked". I never did find
> a correct driver for the EMU10k1 sound card.  (Creative Labs Live 5.1
> Digital.  None of the drivers would load.)

Ha ha ha

I have been doing almost the same thing over the Christmas holiday. Had 
a friend who had a hard drive problem with Windows XP on it (stopped 
booting). He cannot find the original disk nor does he have the CD Key 
written down anywhere. I had to dive into the hard drive with another 
machine, pull the ntuser.dat file, use an external program to load the 
hive, find the encoded bytes containing the key, run them through a 
decoder, then go through SIX installation disks retrieved from various 
places just to find one which would accept the still legitimate key. 
Madness. Of course, after getting Windows installed, I had to run down 
the usual drivers (some of which are VERY old) and get them installed 
too. Then I got to do the "Update, Reboot, More Updates, Reboot, More 
Updates, Reboot, More Updates, Reboot" dance.

I should have told him it was a lost cause, saved myself a lot of grief, 
and just had him run Linux.  :-)

Patrick