What is your OS -- windows, mac, linux?

[masalai]

Think of it as seducing a new girlfriend, do it right and a love affair will grow into a lasting bond of happiness....

[Boston]

Mac all the way
you could give me a pc
but I'd just sell it for some more mac stuff

[masalai]

mac is just a pc with different software - latecomers to the "unix" like operating system which is what Linux is.... and it will run on almost ANY machine including old mac boxes....

[Mychael]

Originally Posted by masalai

April, go half way using your existing box, download ubuntu or my preference Linux Mint which is basically ubuntu with all the plugins and codecs (not supposedly "legal" in USA?) see here http://distrowatch.com/ or http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php - - the "main" or "x64" has all the good bits and the "lite" is the "legal version" for US.

The CD's are self booting and whilst running from CD will not interfere with your hard disk - once you iniyiate the install you have a choice of dual boot or overwrite and use the linux filesystem and OS (you can still read and write to most windows filesystems and applications....

Sadly after a promising start it has ended in tears.. linuxmint ran fine from the CD, appeared to install okay,, but "oh dear"
seems it cannot cope with RAID hdd which my system used. I say used as now I cannot get XP or Linux to run.

Mychael

[masalai]

Sorry to hear about that Mychael, Linux should support RAID - maybe not in the way MS does it and the inherent issues in dual booting - - Do you have access to any user-groups - - - usually hide around local universities as Linux is the "students Unix".... and they may show you how to set it up with Linux & wine for the XP stuff....

The local TAFE - IT man is an absolute genius on Linux - - but he is in the Sunshine Coast - My commiserations and apologies - but it (your data and using RAID if necessary for speed and reliability?) should be recoverable and Melbourne has some pretty good Linux people too....

[Boston]

ya you have my condolences as well
rule of thumb
never run microsoft products
if you have no choice for some reason
use the flip for mac conversion programs

[Mychael]

Yep, have my tame nerd working on fixing it. Not a huge issue if I've lost nothing of my data, a real pain if I have.
Still, trying is the only way to learn.

The Linux ran fine off the cd and seemed to be good, even was passably usable speed wise from the cd alone.

Mychael

[masalai]

when playing, only thing to remember is keep backups of data up to date or be prepared to start with a clean slate.... With major surgery, may as well go the whole hogg and run your windows apps from/through 'wine' a geek acronym "Wine Is Not an Emulator" and it works well for me.... and will never get outdated when MS stops supporting XP etc...

[marshmat]

I've heard that Mint might actually support my video card (ATI mobility radeon 9000). Maybe I'll give that a shot in five weeks once the thesis is done. (Really don't want to mess with the machine until then....)

XP is driving me nuts again. For some reason, a copy of svchost.exe owned by "network service" has been taking over the CPU for about ten seconds whenever I try to access the network. New as of the last round of windows updates..... and very, very annoying. (Imagine your machine revving all its fans up and waiting for ten seconds every time you click a link on the Web....)

Did I mention I hate Windows?

Sooner or later I'll get around to finding that presentation that mysteriously vanished into nowhere a few days ago. Maybe a backup is still on the drive that threw a bearing last fall....

edit - wow, 3000 posts? I need to get out more....!

[masalai]

marshmat, Dont forget to do a backup of all your data files, emails, address book and favourites/bookmarks FIRST,,,, then use the "Main Edition" from here: http://linuxmint.com/download.php and burn it as an "iso image" so it will self boot, - - suck it and see if you like it (will self boot if you have set BIOS to boot from CD) and all OK you can install using the icon labeled such - I use the "clean start" as it seems MS-SATA drive setup is not compatible with linux and "wine" can be configured to run most XP etc stuff and the file system of linux means NO MORE DEFRAG and such "fixit" problems...

Congratulations on effectively "wasting time" a "bonus" added and due to your rep (sorry I forgot to sign)

ps, Find a local user-group with "Debian/Ubuntu/mint" understanding to assist you to tweak your system if necessary - otherwise fairly straight forward.... printer drivers may be "fun" if you have an unusual one - many are supported and quite often try this, remove then try that eventually gets a result - or a learning experience where "full system re-install" is the easy way out of a disaster - backup your new data first...... good luck and have fun...

[marshmat]

Oh, fun indeed Mas
I have a few friends who are gung-ho on Linux; several Debian fans in there so that's what I have on this one now (don't like it, though- it's always way out of date). Been through Redhat 7 and SUSE 10 on another machine.... again, never did figure out all the config tweaking. The machines at the physics lab dual-boot Fedora and XP, and are somehow set up so that diles, email, browser settings/history, even the desktop are shared between OSes. That's what I'm hoping to get to.... eventually.... Mint looks nice, maybe my poor old Toshiba will appreciate it
edit - Mint is downloaded (in 31 minutes! 7Mbps cable is flippin' AWESOME, second only to the campus optical line) and we'll see how this goes when I get a chance to actually do it....

[masalai]

WOAH, CAUTION...... marshmat, the Toshibas had proprietory BIOS and or supplementary enhancement drivers or such that renders bootability to Linux a bloody nightmare.... be very cautious.... I will not touch Toshiba notebooks because of bad memories from earlier days....

There is a 77 page manual in *.pdf form, I got mine from a local mirror here http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/linu.../6/user-guide/ one of the oldest still operational "bulletin boards" from around 1977 when I first used it....

[CDK]

This picture I use as wallpaper for XP. It represents the design philosophy of most current Microsoft products, showing the flaws at the same time: you get wizzards, managers, utilities, loggers and assistants for all sorts of jobs you probably never need; every time you switch your PC on, you have to wait until they've all collected their gear and climbed on the truck. Only then you can check your inbox....

I have some experience with computers. Founded my own company back in 1969, sold it in 1994 and call myself retired since.
My favorite O/S was Digital Research Multi-user DOS: 8 simultaneous tasks on the main screen, up to 32 users connected by RS232 or Ethernet, all processing done by a single 80486 50 Mhz machine that performed faster than a single user Win-XP machine now.

[plebusmaximus]

This picture I use as wallpaper for XP. It represents the design philosophy of most current Microsoft products, showing the flaws at the same time: you get wizzards, managers, utilities, loggers and assistants for all sorts of jobs you probably never need; every time you switch your PC on, you have to wait until they've all collected their gear and climbed on the truck. Only then you can check your inbox.

The OS for the lowest common denominator? Windows updates are a nightmare.

Someone should design an app to remove all conjunktivotis?

Its a shame so much of it is tumoured into the OS like IE.

[masalai]

plebusmaximus, I like that name.... So, live up to it and run linux..... see my above posts #84 & 87 and do it It is rumoured that Bill made a big mistake in paying his "programmers" by the line...