In the last two days I installed operating systems on 3 computers.. [View all]

[Phillip McCleod]

..one downgrade from Win8 to Win7 on a brand new Dell Inspiron i15. One upgrade from Vista to Win7 on a Dell i3 tower, Ispiron 220 i think. And one upgrade from XP to Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 32-bit on a decrepit Pentium M Toshiba Satellite.

Here's how it went for each, *not* including OS updates.

Dell Inspiron i15 laptop.. took a while. Had to set to Legacy BIOS for one instead of UEFI, and then 45 min later, Win7 was installed and running. Then began the Driver Dance. Since it wasn't the only job in the shop, it took more than a day to get the drivers right. I blame the fact that it's new hardware and I was doing a downgrade. Total time: ~3-5 hrs for an expert. On-Edit: for a competent user.. *not possible*.

Dell Inspiron 220 tower.. took a while, but less than the i15. Drivers loaded perfectly from a Dell OEM Windows 7 DVD.. no *dance* at all! Love it. Total time: 45 min. to an hour. On-edit: for competent not expert user.. 3-5 hrs.

Toshiba Satellite piece of shit laptop with the loose screen and dysfunctional DVD-ROM.. figuring out that the DVD drive was bad and figuring out how to boot from an external one took almost as long as installing Linux Mint Debian. Total time: 20 minutes. Tops. On-edit: for competent computer user with research.. probably days.

The hangup with Linux installs is always Gparted.. 'how to partition the hard drive'. Users aren't used to being given that power, and it's *scary*. Once you figure that out.. 20 minutes. tops.

..

BTW, that Toshiba runs the same version of Firefox as Windows 7, and almost as fast.

Chew on that cud if you dare.