mysterious pile of Vista to push aside for Fedora, installation

[David G. Miller]

"D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:

> I just bought an inexpensive desktop computer: Acer Aspire E380.
>
> - MS Vista Home Premium
> - Athlon 64 x2 4200+
> - 3G DDR2 (so it has AMD-V (virtualization hardware))
> - 250G SATA drive...
Chances are you have Vista recovery images and a bunch of crapware.  My 
suggestion is to book into Vista and let it install/initialize itself.  
Once you have a stable system, there should be a means of creating 
recovery DVD images.  Create those and then do whatever you like.  If 
you think you want any of the pre-installed stuff, make sure you either 
have an installation CD or it's part of the recovery image.

Chances are you will at least need Vista if there is anything like a 
BIOS update.  Also, it's the only way support will talk to you if you 
have a hardware problem (boot to Vista, re-create the problem, call 
support, "When I do blah my system doesn't.  Yes, I'm running Vista.").

Cheers,
Dave

-- 
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce