Intel's Raspberry Pi rival Galileo can now run Windows Windows fans can run their OS of choice on Intel’s counter to Raspberry Pi, courtesy of an Intel firmware update. Chipzilla has delivered firmware version 1.0.2 for the Galileo Gen 1, which means Windows can now run on the developer board. Microsoft fans had had to make do with a preview image until now. Getting the update is …
We all want our washing machines to be able to tweet the fridge.
Even if it means the washing machine take 2 minutes to boot, except when it's a Patch Tuesday and it takes 20 minutes to do all the updates.
Better keep the antivirus up to date too.
I think it is all an evil hippy plot to cut down on water use because nobody will want to do their laundry any more.
Too right, whilst stood in front of the washing machine I want to be able to play pong with whoever's stood in front of the fridge!
Just like these pedestrian crosswalk signs in Germany: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx4z2V6uCkc
I like the idea of single-threat Pentium, microSD slot 100Mb Ethernet port with various memory options. Multiple threats are always a pain. I'm not sure how to connect an RJ-45 connector to a microSD slot, but I'm sure they'll sell me an adapter. And various memory options on Ethernet open up interesting possibilites, like the 'no memory' option for those, ahh, educational web sites.
Grammar, it saves lives.
Putting Windows on the Galileo microSD card can take between 30 minutes and two hours. Booting Windows once loaded will take up to two minutes.
So a bit like any other hardware.
The only Windows install I've done (on a quad-core system with lots of memory) took over an hour, with ~4 reboots involved. And it wasn't a one-off, as I had to repeat it all the next day having discovered that you couldn't switch the SATA to AHCI mode without doing a fresh install (unlike the Linux install I'd done at the same time, in 15 minutes, which just looked for what setting was there and behaved accordingly).
Reinstalling Win 7 Pro seems to take several hours, if for no other reason than all the updates since the iso was created
They got this thing called slipstreaming now. You integrate the updates into your install image so you don't have to piss around installing updates post install.
Crazy, eh?
More like this thing called imaging now since that's how Windows since Vista (and really Windows for Legacy PCs) does it. And that's only worth it if you have more than one computer to update. Why can't Microsoft offer updated install images as suggested above?
I imagine the answer is as simple as it's supposed to be more incentive to buy the newer version - fewer updates required. That's also probably why we won't ever see Windows 7 Service Pack 2.
And that's only worth it if you have more than one computer to update. Why can't Microsoft offer updated install images as suggested above?
What a dumb suggestion... What are they supposed to do? Issue a new ISO every patch tuesday? Do you really need your hand held to that extent?
A clean install of Windows 7 SP1 will take 150 updates or thereabouts to be up-to-date.
Last time I looked (which was two days ago) those 150 updates came to about 500Mb.
If you're only doing an install ONCE I don't see the need for bitching - 500Mb is nothing.
If you're doing it multiple times you'll have an automated solution unless you're a total mouthbreather.
Maybe you should try installing OS X or Ubuntu and see how many hundreds of megs of updates you need to download after an install...
Maybe you should try installing OS X or Ubuntu and see how many hundreds of megs of updates you need to download after an install...
For Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu) I had to download about 100MB of updates (which includes updates to all programs, not just the core). Took about 5 minutes in total - hard to say exactly how long, as I could continue using the computer, no reboot. No big deal.
Installing Windows isn't the problem.
It's the gigabytes of updates it requires post install that are the issue, which can take anything from hours to days to install depending on your connectivity and performance levels.
Windows 8.x seems to improve this though, grabbing and applying updates post-install seems to be much improved - I think it may be doing some slipstreaming of the install WIM as it goes along or something - proof will be in the pudding in a years time when there are more, larger patches for it.
Steven R
God! I don't believe you are talking "Windows 8" and a scaled down system all in the same sentence. And I'm not even talking about the resources that Windows 8 requires. I'm talking about the fact that Rasberry PI and any equivilent are hacker tools, and any descent hacker is not even going to consider Windows 8 as part of that tool.
>Windows 8.x seems to improve this though, grabbing and applying updates post-install seems to be much improved
Funny thing is that my memory of installing 8.1 involved first applying about 1GB of update patches before it would let me download the upgrader itself (only available via their windows store BTW) which then proceeded to basically blow away and replace with new versions all of those files it had just demanded be installed.
Incidentally, I don't remember win 7 taking as long as OP suggests. Maybe I spent too long many years ago fighting each machine that was loaded with either 2k or 98 where upon install you had to find another machine with net access to find your network drivers before you could find your video drivers so you could get out of 640*480 mode... fun days (and at the time Linux wasn't much better; the initial install was seamless in comparison but there was always something that would take days to get working.)
I work with a lot of ARM embedded systems. I often use buildroot for smaller projects. A full Linux build from source, including fetching the code, building Linux, u-boot, rootfs, and generating the final binaries. will take you less 10 minutes. It takes under 2 minutes once you've fetched everything.
Even on my crap old laptop and internet connection.
These boot into a running Linux application within 2 seconds. Maybe 5 seconds for a fat-arsed application that needs to load a bigger footprint (eg. Qt).
Wait, you've done one Windows install (two if you count the repeat), so you feel qualified to generalize how it installs on any hardware?No. I was only comparing my times to those quoted for this low-powered device and noting that they were similar.
And, to others, my timings didn't include running the updates. That came later, and at least I could walk away while they ran knowing that the only reboot would be at the end.
Installing the OS required reboots at apparently arbitrary times during the actual installation so I had to hang around and wait...
But, to be fair, this was Vista.
And the AHCI was not the default motherboard setting, and it was only the next day when talking about it at work that a friend suggested I check it...hence the re-install. Followed the next day by the same friend having dug up some info on how it could be changed without a reboot (via some undocumented changes).
it was AHCI from the start
If you didn't enable AHCI before installing Windows, it wouldn't have enabled the drivers for it. You'd have manually enable it in the registry, but how do you do that if you can't boot? (And this is your first time installing Windows)
install took less than a half hour. THE UPDATES took another 40 minutes
So it took you over an hour, too.
Bonus comment: I've only installed Linux twice (in a VM), it was a piece of piss compared to the many Windows installs I've performed
"Windows install took less than a half hour. THE UPDATES took another 40 minutes. Please stop the FUD!"
Is that not part of the point though? Why are MS not providing up to date ISO/USB images to install from? Why should we be installing a potentially years old image followed by gigabytes of patches and updates? Why do we have to build out own "slipstreamed" images with service packs and updates?
It's not as if anyone can't already make copies of Windows install media and pass it around. You still need a key so having a freely downloadable image file is not an additional security risk.
I just updated my Win7 laptop after leaving it for two whole weeks. 748MB of updates. Admittedly that included Office updates, but 748MB? WTF? Then 30 mins install time, must reboot, more updates installed during extended 10 minute shutdown, reboot happens, more updates so a 10 minute startup time.
There was no need to reinstall windows. IT a simple reg edit to turn on ahci mode.
Exit all Windows-based programs.
Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
Locate and then click one of the following registry subkeys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV
In the pane on the right side, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.
And people say that changing settings in Linux is obscure and convoluted!
But.. but.. on Linux, you have to use the KEYBOARD!!"
And edit a plain text file using a normal text editor - there's not even a special tool for it! It's completely under-engineered.
Bullshit. You can change to ahci by changing the start value of the msahci key in the registry. No reinstall needed. About 30 seconds on google would have gotten your answer. You have to make sure the bios has ahci enabled after changing the key and rebooting (otherwise it wont boot)
Well, I've done Linux install unattended that took 40 minutes total, on 7 computers, all at the same time. So that would be less than 6 minutes per machine. None of the machines were identical, but it helped that they all had bios setup to boot from ethernet, and Linux compatible hardware.
And it took 25 minutes to install OS in Raspberry Pi: 20 minutes to write OS image to SDcard, then 5 minutes to setup ssh server and run a configuration script through ssh and that then mounts and executes scripts over the network.
Re. Linux imaging.
whoop do fucking do. Back in 1999 me and a colleague invented a system that you could phone up and it would image up to 400 pc's with the customer image of your choice whilst engineers were driving to the site for a disaster recovery emergency. Call at 4am...we need to get set up now for, say, chase manhatten. . Call MARVIN. Marvin images machines whilst you drink coffee and get clothes on and drive to the office to put kit on truck to take to dr site. But as you know, this requires some forethought and planning. Its not really comparable to building windows on a pc at home is it?pxe booting from an imaging server for a linux install isnt really the same thing
“Funny, I call bullshit on you last statement. I just did a Win7 install with a 256 GB Sata drive and it was AHCI from the start, the Windows install took less than a half hour. THE UPDATES took another 40 minutes. Please stop the FUD!”
So on an SSD with a fast fibre connection, it takes about 20mins to install and maybe a bit under an hour to install just the critical updates - i doubt your specific numbers (I’ve built more Windows boxes than you’ve had hot dinners, including 20 machines a time from the Windows DVD - it would have taken more time to make a proper system image than to do them individually on a 'production line' system). On an SSD system if you want it with all critical updates installed, you’re talking at least an hour. If you want all recommended updates (.net etc) then it’s far, far longer - there are about 2gb of updates, and the .net ones are crushingly slow to install.
Don’t even start on how long it takes over a 16mb internet line with spinning rust storage.
“They got this thing called slipstreaming now. You integrate the updates into your install image so you don't have to piss around installing updates post install.”
Yup, which is great if you’re constantly rebuilding Windows systems. If you’re a home user, or only occasionally rebuilding machines, that time is spent making the slipstreamed image - assuming that it doesn’t cock up the slipstream build when you’re creating it, which because I've done this several times, I have seen. All that saved time, ruined!
As I stated, Linux makes a small base install from one standard OS install disk (no slipstreaming or custom images required), then applies the updates in one shot, then boots you into a working OS. You just can’t do that with Windows as it stands. Linux is, quite simply, better at this - it’s demonstrably true.
“Simple you edit the reg before switching to AHCI mode in the BIOS. or had that thought not occurred to you ?”
So I should do a full install of Windows, then go into the system registry, where one slip up can destroy the machine, change a value, then reboot?
Why can’t it just work this shit out by itself?
That’s less a stab at you and more at Windows, but given that they sorted out most of the uniprocessor/multiprocessor stuff in NT6, I’m hoping that NT7 will be more capable in this regard, because storage types they-are-a-changing and more flexibility will be needed with this stuff.
“Oh and my win 7 installs take 5 minutes from an image via usb 3. About another 2 mins to set up the user. Drivers can take a while maybe 10 minutes to find on the web. Guess you dont know what you are talking about”
How long did it take to create the image? How much did the USB drive cost? What if your machine doesn’t have USB3? What if the image wasn't prepped properly and it accuses you of piracy?
Do you see the inherent problem here? It’s not how it works *out of the box* and as such, doesn’t count. I could image a linux install and have it running in five minutes too, but it’s not massively faster than just booting the standard install image from USB if you have a zippy enough internet connection, so why bother?
“Well, I've done Linux install unattended that took 40 minutes total, on 7 computers, all at the same time. So that would be less than 6 minutes per machine. None of the machines were identical, but it helped that they all had bios setup to boot from ethernet, and Linux compatible hardware.”
I’ve used WDS and Server 2008 to PXEboot 30 bare metal machines with sys prepped images to join the domain, source their drivers from network shares (the network drivers were in the image, natch), apply GPOs to them, install applications and boot to a genuinely complete login screen in under 40 minutes. Admittedly it needed £20k of server and switching behind it, but damn it’s impressive to see it do it. I’m looking forward to trying those tricks in Linux in my new job, frankly - linux sysadmin stuff. That’s also not a barb, I really enjoy this level of automation, it’s awesome.
“Last time I looked (which was two days ago) those 150 updates came to about 500Mb.
If you're only doing an install ONCE I don't see the need for bitching - 500Mb is nothing.”
That’s the first tranche of critical updates - as I noted elsewhere, if you do recommended settings, you’re talking a couple of gig, including lots of very slow .net installs. I agree with your statement that if you’re doing more than half a dozen, you owe it to yourself to learn sys prep and imagex.
As for Ubuntu updates, you get a couple of hundred megs of updates that install in one shot, you might want to reboot to get the latest kernel, and that’s it. I get a couple of megs of updates a day on my home Dev box, and it’s been running for about three weeks before I decided to reboot it to get the latest kernel, which requires a reboot to install. You don’t need to do three updates with a linux system out of the box - typically just one.
Lots of bollocks posted on here (and some reasonable, if moderately inexperienced conjecture). Long and short is that Windows really needs a better update mechanism, ideally one that allows on-the-fly slipstreaming of the install image. the rest (all the updates etc) would require serious, core changes to the way Windows and NTFS work, and I can’t see them coming till the next major NT revision update.
Which is a shame, as much as though I’m ranting here, I quite like Windows for it’s general usability. I’m just really glad I won’t have to work with it (and fix it, and install it, etc) on a day to day basis soon.
Steven R
Well said Steve! You really hit all the nails on the head there!
Speaking as someone who manages corporate deployments of Windows 7 (via PXE/WDS/WSUS), Ubuntu (via PXE/Preseed/APT) and RHEL (PXE/Kickstart/YUM) desktops, the severe shortcomings in the Windows installation and patch process become painfully obvious.
I concur with your 40 minute Windows deployment, although I notice that patching still takes a bit longer and a few reboots on top of that (despite the machine being functional from the first boot). Did you include third party apps in there too?
I find that by comparison a typical Ubuntu deployment by comparison takes around 15 minutes on a modern machine with an SSD. All the latest patches are automatically included during installation for both OS and applications (right down to the Adobe Flash plugin) so on the first boot it really just does work.
This is when hosting a local APT mirror via HTTP and using PXE boot with an appropriately written preseed file. If you don't want to mirror an entire APT repository then using apt-cacher as a proxy does a pretty good job too - once you build the first machine the rest are just as fast as using a local mirror.
RHEL is pretty similar and the fact you can use Python scripts for Kickstart more than makes up for having to live with YUM over APT. :)
My biggest gripe with the Linux side is still having to figure out a few things manually, e.g. some preseed options are easier to find by trial and error after installation using debconf utils than reading documentation.
Going back to the original topic, I'm not sure what Microsoft are trying to achieve by venturing into Galileo territory. Despite making for a reasonable desktop experience, Windows is close to useless without a video output. RDP just seems silly in this case and Windows abstracts hardware a lot further away from the userland then Unix-like OS's do, e.g. no equivalent to /dev or /sys. When hardware interfacing is exactly what the board is aimed at I just can't see why anyone would want to use anything else.
Ey up,
After the subsquent reboot after that tranch of updates, there were another 40mb of updates and then it was done - after another reboot.
And that was only critical updates - no third party apps or 'recommended' updates.
So the thick end of a gigabyte, three hours, and three reboots.
Go Windows Update, it's so FAST!
WRT to accessing a Gallileo machine, RDP using WinFX is pretty tasty, so I hear, but I must admit I've never had a reason to test it with anything in anger (other than RDPing servers, which doesn't count really).
Not had an excuse to have a PXEboot server in here for a long time, not since my last laptops CDRom drive died and I had to rebiuld it. VM of a PXE boot server on Debian, add image, whoosh, sorted!
Steven R
Oh, and for reference - Windows 8.1 install, fresh out of the box (Acer OEM).
Told to install essential updates only - no extras, or addons, etc. Just essential updates.
Tranche 1 - just over 900mb, some 80 updates.
Install, reboot.
Tranche2 - one update, 896 mb by itself.
So those who think Windows Update ain't that bad? Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
That's nearly 2gb on a fresh machine out of the box, on an operating system that isn't even a year old.
So you get one of these "devices", download a pre-made image, boot, wait.. open notepad. And now what?
I'm not knowledgeable about MS-Windows, but you're not implying that I'd have to attach a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, are you? I sure hope not! That would lose any advantage of using a small device in the first place.
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