Install, Reboot

You point out exactly to what I was referring. Each of these boxes belong to one of our customers respectively. We do dozens of OS reinstalls or upgrades every week.

The greater percentage of Windows reinstallations we perform are due to infected or corrupt systems. At a certain point, it is faster and more efficient to back everything up and reinstall Windows than it is to try and clean and repair.

As I was trudging through five Windows reinstallations, one box came through with the following instructions: "Replace Red Hat with Ubuntu 5.0.4 workstation config office suite HP1012 printer." As is standard practice, I called the company's IT manager to confirm the configuration. He confirmed and said something about how this is a pilot and, if everything goes right, they'll be able to finally get rid of their *eff-ing* "red crap" boxes.

Hm. I'm Red Hat neutral. Anyhow.

I booted to the Ubuntu CD and was completely done in 40 minutes. I don't care which OS you use... that's just impressive.

So, from a breakfix shop like ours, lets to the math.

There are twelve of us engineers in our shop, and the work is divided evenly. The formula would be as follows: Let "h" = hours Let "e" = engineers Let "w" = Windows reintallations

thus: e(w x h) = T 12(5 x 3.25) = 12(16.25) =

therefore 195 x $150 = $29,250

Customers paid our shop $29,250 dollars last week just to rebuild their broken Windows boxes.

As far as being "better and easier to use," I don't get the impression that these end users feel Windows is much "better." It's just what their employer has on their network.

Easier to use? Not if it's on my workbench being rebuilt.

-- The only easy day was yesterday.