Any Linux Users Here?

Ned Young said:
Matthew Schenker said:
...I didn't know you could boot Linux from an external drive .
Click to expand...

Matthew,

I was dubious, but did a bit of googling.  Look at

GRUB on a Stick
Click to expand...

I just came across this discussion... I have Knoppix installed on my 2GB thumb drive (w/ instruction from the above site). Pretty darned slick. I use Linux almost exclusively @ work (Fedora now but Linux/Unix-type of OSes back to the late '80s) and at home as well (3 Fedora boxes - one is a PVR (Myth)). However, I also have 3 family members who only use XP (guess who has to admin those).

Why not just spend $20 on a thumb drive and install Knoppix (or your choice) on it and use it for an extended period of time? You'll be learning the same info that you would be if you set up an external hard drive without having to mess with your current Windows system at all. Plus, you'll be able to go to anybodies computer, restart it and have it boot your OS and your environment. Ever go to someone's house and ask to check your email? It sorta starts to border on an invasion of privacy these days what with people keeping their entire lives on their hard drive...

... well, that was a bit of a ramble. If I can be of any actual help, feel free to contact me.

-Scott
 
daveg said:
Matthew

Aren't there radio buttons (a list of them) that read something like

*  "Guided - resize ... partition #1 ... (hda1)... and use free space "

*  "Guided - use entire disk ..."

*  "Manual"

Are you using the graphical install?
Click to expand...

Yes, that's the first stage of the partitioning questions.  I always choose to resize an existing partition.  Then, in the next stage it asks me more questions about how much space to allocate and provides me with those weird choices I mentioned before.

woodlunk said:
Why not just spend $20 on a thumb drive and install Knoppix (or your choice) on it and use it for an extended period of time? You'll be learning the same info that you would be if you set up an external hard drive without having to mess with your current Windows system at all. Plus, you'll be able to go to anybodies computer, restart it and have it boot your OS and your environment. Ever go to someone's house and ask to check your email? It sorta starts to border on an invasion of privacy these days what with people keeping their entire lives on their hard drive...
Click to expand...

I might do that.  I actually have a few of those thumb drives laying about!  Nothing to lose, obviously.  I just didn't know it was possible to have a functioning installation from a thumb drive -- I mean an installation that allowed me to access all the hardware and files.

Thanks,
Matthew
 
cparson,
Yes, that site does have some good, clear information.  It's rare to find such straightforward directions and tips.  Thanks for posting it.
Matthew
 
I didn't want to leave this without giving some more info that might help if you did eventually want to install linux to your internal drive. Since you have anyone else sitting at your computer to help out, this kind of thing can be more difficult than it could be otherwise. Also, the help info on the Ubuntu support site hasn't been updated with the latest version.

I think you also might find some help at the following 2 URL's. They discuss dual boot installation with the "Alternate CD" Ubuntu 7.04 Installation. They give specific examples of the disk partitioning steps that might apply to you.

Windows With FAT32 + Feisty Fawn
Windows With NTFS + Feisty Fawn

You can find more info about your available partitions with the WinXP command line tool "diskpart". It will allow you to get info that will help you determine what partitions are mapped to a specific drive letter, which is your boot partition, etc. If your interested you can open the Windows help system and look up "diskpart" for details on usage. The GUI equivalent is selecting your "My Computer" icon, right clicking to select "Manage", then open "Computer Management(local)->Storage->Disk Management" tab. The linux terminology for the IDE/SCSI physical disks (hda; hdb)/(sda; sdb) maps roughly to the Windows terminology (Disk0; Disk1). I think once you understand linux and Windows partition terminology, you would feel more comfortable with the partitioning steps. At any rate, good luck with the USB drive install.
 
Dave,
More options -- that's a good thing, usually, but in the Linux world there are almost too many choices!  The links provided by you and others here have been very helpful, and make the Linux world a little clearer to me.

Please post if you see anything else of interest out there that you think belongs in this discussion.

Thanks again for all your help.

Matthew
 
Interesting to read all this about linux.

My mum brought over her aging hp 1.2 celery with a whopping 256 mb of ram for me to try and breather new life into. I was going to scrub the disk and put it on win2000 as it east less resources than xp does but I must admit thinking about trying linux on it.

With a computer of that little power would linux be a better alternative?
 
neoshed said:
Interesting to read all this about linux.
...aging hp 1.2 celery with a whopping 256 mb of ram...
Click to expand...

Is that memory maxed?  Crucial Memory is a reliable vendor.  Their website will quickly tell you if you can put more in, and how much it will cost.  Max it out if you can.  The jump from 256M to, say, 512M will make the PC more lively with any OS installed.

With a computer of that little power would linux be a better alternative?
Click to expand...

Probably not for your mom.  The question isn't so much whether the machine will run the OS as whether your mother wants to learn a new OS, one that I gather would be new to you, her tech support, too. 

If your mother's used to Windows XP and the machine could use more memory, back up the machine, max out the memory, reinstall the software (reinstall, don't just restore from the backup), then move her data from the backup back onto the machine.  The result will be the best performance that box is ever going to give.

Here's another possibility:  You can buy a brand-new PC with Windows Vista or XP installed for USD 500.  Laptops can be got for USD 700 or so.  Not a powerhouse, but it should suffice for your mother unless she's seriously into Photoshop or gaming.  It takes me more than a day to rebuild and reinstall a machine properly.  If your time's worth anything at all...

Ned
 
I looked at the memory issue. The board will only take up to 512 so I'll probably buy 2 256 to throw in it.

At the moment xp is sucking up virtually all 256 do it runs like a dog. Your right about my mum trying a new OS....bad idea....and yes I'm the free tech support. I guess I'll just it and throw on 2k.

Thanks mate.
 
My 2 cents here

XP or Linux, or both: I advise you to regularly backup your hard disks on a dedicated USB external
drive using 'disk copy' software like true image or norton ghost. Don't forget to create the bootable
CD as kindly suggested by such tools.

This way, reinstalling from your most recent backup brings the following benefits

- backup and reinstall is very fast (specially if using incremental backups) since
  you don't have to play with installation and drivers CD anymore, which is slow.

- you reinstall the latest OS or driver updates you got across the internet, which
  are NOT on your installation CD

Another suggestion is to use a separate partition to store your personal data
(in linux it is in the /home mount point). That keeps it protected from
installing or reinstalling a new version of the OS (unless your modify
the partitions of during the process)
 
Good advice from mhch.  However,

...reinstalling from your most recent backup...
Click to expand...

You do not reinstall from a backup, you restore from a backup.  If your machine was bogged down because of layers of updates, installed and then removed software that left debris, and all of that, after a restore, your PC will be no better off.

Reinstallation is a lot more work, but has real benefits.  Using the old state of the PC as a model ("She wants the following applications on it, and folders named X, Y, and Z"), you build the software, OS and all, up from the base state when it was new.

You need to be sure that the backup software you use produces a backup from which you can pull individual files and folders, not just a "disk image".  TrueImage works fine, I think Norton Ghost will as well.

  • Back it up.  Don't just ask what she wants to save, back up the whole thing.  Call this set "A".
    • If your computer came with "recovery" disks, use them.  This restores the PC to the software state it was in when you bought it.  There's probably a lot of shovelware installed like AOL and Earthlink offers and crippled versions of stuff they hope you'll buy.  If you can remove this stuff using the Control Panel/Add/Remove Programs, do it.
    • If your computer came with XP installation disks (less likely), install the OS.
  • Install the backup software.
  • Go through Windows Update repeatedly until no more updates are available.
  • Make a backup.  Burn it to CD or DVD.  If you have to rebuild it again, you can start from this point, saving you hours.
  • Install anti-virus software and firewall.  Update them.  Run them in their most thorough mode to check your PC.
  • Make a backup.  Burn it to CD or DVD.  If you have to rebuild again, and you want to use the same anti-virus and firewall, you can start from this point.
  • Now install the applications she uses.  Install and upgrade them one by one.
  • Run Windows Update again.  Repeat until it finds no more updates.
  • Make a backup.  At this point the machine has all the applications your mother uses, but doesn't have her data.
  • From the "A" backup disks you made, restore the individual files and folders that contain her data.  Do not do a full restore--that will wipe out your rebuild.  You don't want to copy any programs from the backup.  You're only after data--documents, images, whatever.
  • Back up again.  All the backups up to this point were part of the reinstallation process, but this latest one is the first that protects her "new" computer.
  • There will be a lot of minor griping until she or you create shortcuts on the desktop the way she used to have them, you find her old wallpaper and install it, and the various apps' options (like "smart quotes" in Word) are configured the way she wants them.
  • I've got an idea!  Let's make another backup!

Ned
 
My advice was not as complete as neoshed's one is ... and being French: my English is also likely
not as good :-) Anyway it seems from what I read, we say similar things

- once you have a running and a number of accumulated updates to it, which all work
  correctly, backup the related partitions to a CD or a USB disk. Backup again
  when you accumulated a number of updates.

- also backup the user data which is best kept on a partition which is separate from the
  ones used for the OS. It's probably easier to delete what mother don't want rather than
  to hunt for what she wants :-) you can even let her do the job.

Do regular incremental backup for both OS and user partitions. Once in a while,
restart from a complete new backup followed by regular incremental backups.

When my laptop hard disk failed (MTBF is not more than a couple of years for these)
and had to be replaced,  I had a running system within an hour or so. Reinstalling
from CD plus getting the missing internet updates would have taken at least a day,
if not two.

Full backup takes about an hour to do, incremental backup about 10m ...
You have all the numbers to decide what best suits your needs.

When I joined the FOG, I did not expect to contribute rapidly, being relatively new
to woodwork ... but I really appreciate all the information I can get from the group
about the Festool System. Thanks.

 
I just read a review of the Zonbu.  It may not be a replacement for a full-fledged laptop, but it definitely raises an interesting challenge.  They seem to have packed a lot of functionality into a very simple and inexpensive system.

Another breakthrough that challenges the status quo is the "One Laptop Per Child" program.  Check it out here: OLPC Program.

For me, this raises the whole issue of how grossly bloated so many systems have become.  I was just reading a technology article the other day and the author made a great point, something to this effect: although processors have gotten faster, and we have more RAM in today's systems, new computers are not actually any faster because the software is so bloated.

I think Zonbu makes a point about this.  I also think Linux makes the same point.  It seems that a lot of Linux releases are a bit too techy for for most users, but it seems to me that it won't be long before that changes.  The Linux releases are getting more and more friendly every month.  My prediction is, within a year Linux systems will pose a true challenge to Microsoft and Apple.

By the way, it looks like Ubuntu/Kubuntu will be releasing a brand-new version (7.10) in about a week.  I'm keeping my eyes open for it.  Has anybody here use the beta release?

Matthew
 
Everyone,
Last night, I downloaded the Kubuntu 7.10 Live CD.  From the Live CD, the system looks great!  It really seems that Linux is developing very well, and it is poised to mount a major challenge to Microsoft and Apple.

With one little problem...

I still cannot fathom the partitioning operation.  I've read all kinds of documentation on this. Even with the new Kubuntu, I'm still presented with the same incomprehensible partition choices.

I consider myself fairly technically adept, and yet I cannot get through the partitioning phase of installation.  Based on the design of the system, I really do feel Linux is ready to win over a lot of people.  But until the Linux community makes the partitioning process easier, they will not win over the semi-technical crowd they need.

Matthew
 
Picking up where we left off...

My revulsion for Windows Vista sent me down a path of finding better options for what to run on my computer system.  Over the past few weeks, I've been doing some major experimentation with Linux.  I've tried out several Linux "distributions" (variations) including Ubuntu, Mepis, Fedora, Open SUSE, Mint, Sabayon, PCLinuxOS, Debian, Knoppix, and a couple of others.

All of the above distributions are good, and all have their advantages.  I settled on Kubuntu, a version of Ubuntu.  The main decision was whether to go with the "KDE" desktop, which is used by Kubuntu, as opposed to the "Gnome" desktop, which is used by Ubuntu.  But I digress into technicalities.

The point is, I have removed Windows from my computers.  That's right -- Windows is gone!  As in, completely removed, deleted, wiped away.  Not a trace of Microsoft on my system.

For the first couple of weeks, I ran Windows and Linux side by side (what s known as "dual booting"), but soon realized that I was ready to go Linux full time.  One fine day, I went ahead and installed Linux, letting it take over my hard drive.  I've been running Linux full-time for about a month and have not regretted it once!

Linux operating systems have come a long way in recent years, and I can honestly tell you they are ready to give Microsoft a major challenge.  The distributions are friendly, many are very easy to use, and they give you the freedom to set up your system the way you want it to be.

Another huge plus: the Linux community is terrific.  In online forums for Kubuntu, I got all the help I needed, and had several patient experts offer basic advice and information as I learned how to get up and running.  It helped make the transition from Windows to Linux very smooth (actually, the forums remind me of the Festool Owners Group).

I am writing this to say to those of you who are unhappy with Windows and don't want to have to deal with Vista, there is an amazing option.

If you want to dive in and get an idea what I'm talking about, I suggest these sites:

One of the great things about Linux is that you can get a "Live CD," which allows you to try out the operating system without having to install it.  That's what I did for a while with various distributions.

My prediction: over the next year or so, Microsoft is going to meet with a major challenge as Linux systems become more prominent and more users realize they don't need to be tied down to Microsoft.  Apple is also going to get a drubbing, for the same reasons.

I'm going to create a new board in the "Off=Topic" area specifically for Linux and open-source discussions.  I believe the open-source path is vital and it is the responsibility of open-source forum owners to include it.

Matthew
 
Welcome to the club. Unfortunately in my home I have users that play games that require Windows (XP though, not Vista) and my wife has a couple of applications for which there is no Linux equivalent. That doesn't stop me from having 3 Linux boxes in the house though (mail/web server, myth tv & my main workstation).

BTW, I believe Apple's OS X is based on BSD UNIX which is a great OS in it's own right and which a number of Linux design principles are based on. So, I think the Apple machines aren't going to suffer much at the hands of Linux. And while there may be a slight erosion of Microsoft's dominance, I doubt it'll cause much of a problem in their sales (nobody ever got fired for buying IBM - a bit dated but the same sentiment). Not trying to cause an argument it's just that this same topic seems to be a daily discussion across the web.

I also use Linux exclusively at work.
 
woodlunk said:
Welcome to the club. Unfortunately in my home I have users that play games that require Windows (XP though, not Vista) and my wife has a couple of applications for which there is no Linux equivalent. That doesn't stop me from having 3 Linux boxes in the house though (mail/web server, myth tv & my main workstation).
Click to expand...

I've heard many people talk about the game limitations.  In my case, it doesn't matter, since I don't play games!

woodlunk said:
BTW, I believe Apple's OS X is based on BSD UNIX which is a great OS in it's own right and which a number of Linux design principles are based on. So, I think the Apple machines aren't going to suffer much at the hands of Linux. And while there may be a slight erosion of Microsoft's dominance, I doubt it'll cause much of a problem in their sales (nobody ever got fired for buying IBM - a bit dated but the same sentiment). Not trying to cause an argument it's just that this same topic seems to be a daily discussion across the web.
Click to expand...

Yes, from what I understand Apple based its operating system on a variant of Linux, but I'm not totally caught up on what happened there.  When I tested Apple OS X, a lot of elements felt very similar to Linux.  In my opinion, Apple may not suffer quite as fast.  However, if people start realizing they can get the same benefits of OS X in a free operating system, Apple is going down just like Microsoft (of course, Apple has iTunes/iPod, which could replace their computer business).  Again, just my opinion.  Who really knows what will happen next?

But I do strongly believe Microsoft is in for a drubbing in the next couple of years.  They made a major misstep with Vista, causing widespread unhappiness.  There has been some frustration with Microsoft for years, but I believe the whole model is changing now.  Microsoft's missteps are timed perfectly with some new and better releases of Linux.  Also, Dell just started offering Ubuntu (a Linux variant) on some of their computers (Dell's Ubuntu site).

As you stated, no one knows for sure what will happen, and Microsoft has weathered challenges before. So all this is in the realm of opinion.

In my case, I was a full-time Microsoft user not long ago.  Getting a taste of the horrors of Windows Vista drove me to check out other options.  That led me to Apple, and that led me to Linux.  It was all a very natural path.  I'm positive that I am not the only one who has followed that path.

Matthew
 
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