[mythtv-users] I'm thinking of switching to windows :(

[Raphael Pooser]

Ken Teague wrote:

> James C. Dastrup wrote:
>
>> Just an off-topic tip:
>>
>> My biannual Windows reinstall takes 5 minutes. Image a working
>> system up to your network, then image it down when you need to
>> rebuild. And if you use sysprep, then even any hardware changes
>> don't affect the image process. Or, put a sysprep'ed image on a DVD 
>> and just image it to any computer - you never need to
>> see the installation again.  
>>
> I think the point, here, is that, at some point in time, you do have 
> to go through the 45 minute flawed installation of Windows before you 
> can get to get to a point of imaging.  Lets throw sysprep in the mix 
> and you've possibly added a mini-setup to your post-image dump.  Tag 
> on the -pnp argument to sysprep so you can detect any new hardware you 
> may have thrown in your box since its last image and you've tacked on 
> another 5-10 minutes to the mini-setup.
>
> Also, a *base* Windows setup (including a copy of i386 in the root of 
> C:) is roughly 1.5GB of data.  What do you get in that 1.5GB?  Lets 
> see, Notepad (such a powerful text editor), Calculator, Character Map, 
> WordPad (even more powerful than Notepad!), Pinball, Freecell, 
> MediaPlayer, Internet Explorer, etc... but how much is actually 
> useful, and how much productivity can be found?  Hardly any of it.  I 
> can install Debian in 20 minutes and have a fully functional X Window 
> System and tons of utilities and productivity tools.  We can leave out 
> C:\i386 and take away about 500MB from that 1.5GB, and that still 
> leaves us with 1GB of stuff that's mostly CRAP!  To get up to speed 
> after a post-image dump, you'll need to reinstall your apps which 
> takes most of the time when rebuiling a box.  So, tell us... how long 
> does it take you to get back to where you were after you dump the 
> image in 5 minutes?
>
> - Ken
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
I will say, image or no image in windows, nothing can beat the 
simplicity and ease of "tar <options> backup.tgz /" in linux for backup 
and the subsequent ease of "tar <other options> backup.tgz /" for 
restore.  There are plenty of other ways and programs to backup linux, 
like unison, and umpteen others, but hey, I don't think there is any 
windows program available (for free) that is as simple as just hitting 
return after a one line command (which you could make even simpler by 
just putting into a script with a really easy name like "backup_system") 
to backup or just hitting return after a one line command to restore.  
Put it in a cron, cycle the backup filenames, and you have XP's system 
restore on steroids, only it doesn't constantly take up resources.
Sorry, I'm just going on about this because I never even bothered 
backing up linux boxes until this year and so I'm still in that ooh wow 
phase about it.
Raphael