A small expirement i did.

[Bazoukas]

Allright here it is.

I installed Win98, RH7.3 and Mandrake 8.1.
Each OS resides on its own Western Digital 40Gig HD (Same speed and model) using a CDRW that runs on 32 (i think) speed as CDROM.

  I wanted to see which OS will take the longest to install and to be in workable condition.

  What do i mean Workable condition?
a) Video drivers installed.
b) Sound drivers installed.
c) Nick drivers installed.
d) Computer is ready to go and compile c++ programs.
f) Firewalls are setup
g) Antivirus program is installed
 
All CDs and flopys were in front of me and in order, so no time was wasted AT ALL looking for the right CDROM.


  Timer was started at when PC was booting from installation CD or Flopy and it stoped when all conditions above were met. Time includes Formating time as well on all 3 OSs.
 
here are the results.


------------------------------------------------
Red Hat7,3.
Option Install class:     Workstation
Size of installation :    2035 Gigs.

Time  31:52 seconds.

------------------------------------------------

Mandrake 8.1

Option Install class:     Workstation
Size of installation :    2545

Time 44:28 seconds.

------------------------------------------------
Windows 98

Option Install Class: Typical
Size of installation : Somewhere in the area of 980Mbs. Frankly i didnt care to view that.

Time: I SHIT YOU NOT. One Hour and 31 Minutes. This includes 7 Reboots as well.
------------------------------------------------

 My PC specs?

 AMD XP1800.
 256DDR.
 ABIT AT7 motherboard.
 All 3 HDs run on 7200 Rpms.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: bazoukas ]

[shuiend]

thats great my win2k pro took 7 hours to install once. while a full red hat 7.3 took 44 min.

[Chooco]

my 1.5GB installation of Mandrake from a 52x CD took about 20 minutes or so
when i installed WinXP Home on that same computer and same CD drive, it took about an hour and half or so. it was installing for a hell of a long time.

[ims27_8]

I've never seen windows xp or 98 take that long to install, it usually takes about an hour, maybe a bit more. Windows 2000 took ages once for me when i started the installation from dos (it's much faster when you start from an earlier version of windows for some reason). Mandrake and red hat take about 40 minutes or so for me. I've never timed any of this though. btw 980 meg seems like a hell of a lot for windows 98, even with a c++ compiler and antivirus.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: Lt. Reliability of the Redmond Army ]

oh yeah, what c++ compiler did you use on windows? I wouldn't mind getting one, what do you recommend?

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: Lt. Reliability of the Redmond Army ]

[Bazoukas]

Visual Studio alone was 1.5+ gigs (full install).

 its Visual Studio 6.

 I bought it for 5 dollars from my college. Retail is almost $300.

 I wouldnt recomend it for that price. And i kid you not, its tempermental.

 tempermental not as in crashing but as in that sometimes the compiler takes a shit and it wont compile your program even if there are no errors in it.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: bazoukas ]