I have some geek overload for y’all:

I am writing this from my newly-installed Sun Ultra 5 workstation during the WebStart install.

Now, I have to say, WebStart is probably the worst option for installing Solaris 8—it’s slow and only allows a minimum of customization. However, I must say that the “web” portion is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in any install program.

Initially, I thought that the web install meant that it was going to install via HTTP. While that is an option, it is actually installing from CD ROM. So why web install, you ask? Because you can actually SURF THE WEB while the installation runs!!!

Right now, as I type, the little dialog box says “Installing… Soloaris 8 Software [ Graphics Header Libraries] and is rolling along at a painfully slow clip. But I am not stopped by this: I am surfing the web while I wait. Unbelievable!!!

Does anyone else understand why I think this is so cool? If you’ve ever sat in a data center, dungeon of some building or even at your own home and been installing an OS, it’s almost necessary for your sanity to have a connection to the real world while the installer program runs. If only I’d had this about 4 or 5 years ago when I was putting the OS (via CD, I might add) on hundreds of these suckers!

And before anyone writes in telling me that I’m an idiot, I must state that I do know what Jumpstart is and I use it.

P.S.: I realize just how geeky it is to enclose my rant in well-formed tag-based geekiness.