Iiiiiiinnnnntttttrrrrrrroduuuucing ... the VISTASTATION!!!!!!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Mike Padlipsky <the.map () alum mit edu>
Date: March 18, 2007 7:33:41 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: said submission



Iiiiiiinnnnntttttrrrrrrroduuuucing ... the VISTASTATION!!!!!!


[We'll get to the musical theme later.]

Having told my estate attorney the story of where I heard the  
profound line "I've got to spend more money on myself; after all, I  
don't like my heirs all that much" and been told in response "You  
really ought to apply that principle to yourself more often" a few  
days before, I was in no condition to resist the temptation to buy a  
notebook computer [it turned out to be too hot and heavy to call it a  
laptop] a few days later when I spotted an ad for what looked like  
"good iron" at a very attractive price.

Not that I need a notebook computer, just that since I already had a  
hand-me-down wireless router around the house and it came with  
"WiFi", as well as a full gig of RAM and a 120gig hard drive as well  
as 4 USB ports and Bluetooth and Firewire and a DVD burner, among  
other things I don't associate with sub-$700 (after rebates)  
notebooks, muchless less machines from a formerly reliable "name  
brand" manufacturer (assuming They honor the mail-in rebates,  
anyway), I figured it'd be nice to be able to get at the 'Net from  
the living room. And besides, in addition to my fondness for bargains  
it did count as an extravagance of sorts, even if it won't cost my  
heirs much in the long run.

The trouble is, as I only learned after the 14-day return period had  
elapsed, I hadn't bought a notebook computer, I'd bought a  
Vistastation 1.

That is, like the Playstation 2, say, which is meant for playing  
Playstation games with but does have a computer inside that can be  
gotten at if you know what you're doing and work moderately hard at  
it so that you aren't constrained only to use it for playing  
Playstation games, I thought I'd be able to get at the computer  
inside the on-sale Lenovo 3000 N100 with only a moderate amount of  
work and use it for doing things other than running Vista programs.  
Specifically, dual-booting Linux. But after far too much work, I'm  
left with the conviction that unless I go to an undesirable amount of  
trouble after almost every time I'm incautious enough to run Vista,  
I'm left with a machine that only doesn't even do Vista things.

First and foremost, that's because, as probably everybody reading  
this knows but I didn't, in advance, the Redmond Ratfinks mess the  
Master Boot Record up, so after I painstakingly installed a Linux  
"distro" (Ubuntu 6.10, "Edgy Eft", actually), if I then boot Vista I  
can't even boot Vista again without getting the MBR back into a state  
where the Linux bootloader "Grub" can function again. Well, make that  
usually can't even boot Vista again, since it appears that if no  
"updates" were snuck in behind my back the MBR doesn't necessarily  
get trashed -- but I've wasted too much time on all this foolishness  
to bother to confirm that ... especially since I'm not even sure how  
to tell whether any updates were snuck in behind my back, unless  
searching for everything created, or maybe created and/or modified,  
in the last day would work; but I am sure than when I explicitly  
accepted a batch of explicitly offerred updates the world went to  
pieces.

(The notebook doesn't have a floppy drive to put Grub on, of course,  
so unless the trick a friend mentioned earlier today does work and I  
can install Grub on a CD-ROM to boot from, I'll have to keep having  
recourse to "Super Grub Disc" or the like to un-mess the MBR. But  
even if all I have to do is to leave a Grub CD-ROM in all the time, I  
shouldn't have to do that.)

And don't try to tell me the Redmonk Ratfinks have a good security  
rationale for mucking about with the MBR. For that matter, if anybody  
thinks the improved security claims hold water, unless part of Their  
"certified for Vista" effort includes an unpublicized requirement  
that all applications separate program from data, which has been in  
the literature as a sine qua non for secure operating systems since  
around 1965, whatever incremental additional security Their semi- 
incomprehensible new bootload folderol imparts doesn't improve it  
enough to justify the MBR fallout.

Nor can you let Them have their way with the MBR and use Their new  
bootload. Unless what their pathetic excuse for documentation says is  
false, you can only multiple-boot other Ratfinksware with their  
native mechanism for multiple-booting, so at best you get a  
Ratfinksware box. Not only that, but "oldest OS first" means that  
you've got to have a real installer for Vista, which bloodyLenovo --  
along with many, if not indeed most, other manufacturers -- does not  
provide these years. Since Their2 "Rescue and Recovery" squishware  
starts out by wiping the entire hard drive clean, though, if you need  
to reinstall Vista for any reason, whether because it got messed up  
or because you want to multi-boot Their way, there goes your "older"  
Microsoft pathetic excuse for an OS, even if you're willing to settle  
for a Ratfinksware box.

(Nor could I get bloodyLenovo to say that They2'd fix Rescue and  
Repair to respect pre-existing partitions, of course.)

Now, "virtual machine" me no virtual machines as a possible  
alternative solution. A computer should be dual-bootable if it's a  
computer; virtual machines, which may or may not even work in this  
grotesque context, shouldn't be necessary. Unless you've got a  
Vistastation and the Ratfinks' virtual machines do happen to work for  
Linux, anyway....

Granted, it takes some complicity from the manufactures on the  
reinstall front, but what Microsoft is foisting off on the public is  
only good for doing Vista things, no matter how hard you try to get  
it to run Linux, too -- hence in that sense, it's not even as good as  
a Playstation, since I'm given to believe they at least can be  
coerced into being both computers and Playstation game players.

So as at least a warning to others about what they'd be getting if  
they got a machine that "came with Vista" -- and even if they were  
foolish enough to buy a Vista installer -- if you didn't know it  
already, now you do know: get Vista, wind up with a Vistatation 1 ...  
or maybe 1a, if you count being able to make it do other Microsoft  
pathetic excuses for operating systems if you have the requisite  
installers.

In addition to the warning, naturally, I'd be delighted to hear from  
counsel who'd be interested in bringing suit against the Ratfinks and  
bloodyLenovo, among others, over Their implicit false advertising  
(that They're selling computers rather than Vista-boxes), and Their  
de facto restraint of trade behavior, over Their MBR depradations.  
Plus any other charges that might occur to anybody, lawyers or not;  
going after the manufacturers separately for complicity because of  
the partitioning-ignoring reinstallations comes immediately to mind.

Indeed, it might be rather classy to do a class action, even if the  
judgment would doubtless be so large that it'd never be paid because  
of the infinite string of appeals They'd generate ....


Oh, yeah, about that musical accompaniment. Since it's apparently  
traditional to use a Rolling Stones song with "launches" (or so I'm  
given to believe; I don't do Rolling Stones; I've never heard "Start  
Me Up"; indeed, I had to searchengineer that it's Start Me Up, not  
Start It Up), the one for Vista should be:

I dont WANT no VISstuh-stay-shun, I dont WANT no VISstuh-stay-shun....

(Appropriate turns of phrase on getting what you want and getting  
what you need left as an exercise.)

cheers, map

Michael A. Padlipsky
< http://www.lafn.org/~ba213/mapstuff.html >

__________________
Mr. Padlipsky is one of the Old Network Boys (indeed, the coiner of  
the term) and the author of The Elements of Networking Style and  
Other Essays and Animadversions on the Art of Intercomputer  
Networking, "the world's only known Constructively Snotty computer  
science book" (©1985, reprinted ©2000).



-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/@now
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com