Monday, April 28, 2008
Travails with Linux
Another weekend of trying to install Linux, this time Ubuntu, and I've finally given up on trying to set up and maintain a dual-boot system. It just ain't happening.
Something random going on with Ubuntu version 8.04, which is only recently released. I even bought a self-help book to make sure I wasn't missing something in the set up, or the partitioning. Swop file set? Check. Format spare partition on primary SCSI hard drive with EXT3 fs? Check.
I took the easy route - booted the Ubuntu live CD and ran the install from there - and I took the harder route and installed from the CD. Why did I do it twice? In fact I did it four times. Each time, after the system was up around three to five minutes, the screen would blank and the system would freeze me out. Not a CTRL-ALT-DEL freeze-out but what the techies in the late 80s used to call a problem that needed the BRS solution - toggling the the Big Red Switch on the front of IBM PS2s to get them out of a lock-up type of freeze-out.
Much as I hate cycling the power on a running system, I did it - and eventually after the fourth try, I gave up and installed VMware on Vista. The VM version of Ubuntu works perfectly - and I really have not got the time, inclination or deep technical skills to try and work out what went wrong.
So, I'm stuck with using Windows as the underlying OS. At least everything works, including my webcam (a few years old, and flaky with Linux) and the toaster - the Netgear SG101 NAS device - where I actually made a bit of progress. Yep, discovered that it is possible to run my Linux VMs from the NAS drive, even though the disks are rather slow and offer a maximum R/W speed of around 5MB per second. This discovery helped sweeten the bitter pill and widens my choice of Linux flavors. The rather excellent ThoughtPolice website even provided me with super-fast downloads (via BitTorrent, faster than HTTP) for some ready-baked VMware images such as Fedora.
Something random going on with Ubuntu version 8.04, which is only recently released. I even bought a self-help book to make sure I wasn't missing something in the set up, or the partitioning. Swop file set? Check. Format spare partition on primary SCSI hard drive with EXT3 fs? Check.
I took the easy route - booted the Ubuntu live CD and ran the install from there - and I took the harder route and installed from the CD. Why did I do it twice? In fact I did it four times. Each time, after the system was up around three to five minutes, the screen would blank and the system would freeze me out. Not a CTRL-ALT-DEL freeze-out but what the techies in the late 80s used to call a problem that needed the BRS solution - toggling the the Big Red Switch on the front of IBM PS2s to get them out of a lock-up type of freeze-out.
Much as I hate cycling the power on a running system, I did it - and eventually after the fourth try, I gave up and installed VMware on Vista. The VM version of Ubuntu works perfectly - and I really have not got the time, inclination or deep technical skills to try and work out what went wrong.
So, I'm stuck with using Windows as the underlying OS. At least everything works, including my webcam (a few years old, and flaky with Linux) and the toaster - the Netgear SG101 NAS device - where I actually made a bit of progress. Yep, discovered that it is possible to run my Linux VMs from the NAS drive, even though the disks are rather slow and offer a maximum R/W speed of around 5MB per second. This discovery helped sweeten the bitter pill and widens my choice of Linux flavors. The rather excellent ThoughtPolice website even provided me with super-fast downloads (via BitTorrent, faster than HTTP) for some ready-baked VMware images such as Fedora.
Labels: Linux, Ubuntu, virtualization, Vista
Friday, April 25, 2008
More adventures with Linux - and virtual machines
Last weekend's aborted attempt to set up a dual-boot system made me think again about which flavor of Linux I'd like. After seeing a demo at a trade show of an OS booting off a secure USB drive and then starting a VMware player version of XP, I realized the answer was pretty obvious - Ubuntu. Version 8.04 is just out and this is a long-term release, too.
My previous reservations with Ubuntu have been that it's too simple, if that's possible - I was feeling restricted by the limited number of packages available for install. This week, RTFM time, and I discovered a straightforward way of unlocking further functionality, simply through enabling the installation of proprietary drivers etc ... which should solve the biggest problem I seem to have - 3D acceleration for my ATI graphics card.
This week I also came across a very, very smooth quasi virtual machine: MojoPac. It's XP only at the moment in terms of both platform and host OS, but apart from that, it uses underlying Windows services but provides a secure environment, running on a portable hard drive or USB stick. Interesting - except that I tend to carry my laptop on trips, for use during the journey. As a just in case - since the installation I saw took a mere 70MB, I'm going to set one up anyway as a just-in-case.
My previous reservations with Ubuntu have been that it's too simple, if that's possible - I was feeling restricted by the limited number of packages available for install. This week, RTFM time, and I discovered a straightforward way of unlocking further functionality, simply through enabling the installation of proprietary drivers etc ... which should solve the biggest problem I seem to have - 3D acceleration for my ATI graphics card.
This week I also came across a very, very smooth quasi virtual machine: MojoPac. It's XP only at the moment in terms of both platform and host OS, but apart from that, it uses underlying Windows services but provides a secure environment, running on a portable hard drive or USB stick. Interesting - except that I tend to carry my laptop on trips, for use during the journey. As a just in case - since the installation I saw took a mere 70MB, I'm going to set one up anyway as a just-in-case.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Installation Saturday
All's gone well on Installation Saturday except the usual hitches (Windows glitches) and the fact that Debian isn't really the one for me - so although I've got the 32-bit Shi*sta installation up and running, SUSE Linux will follow in a few days.
Again I noticed how much faster a fresh install of Windows runs before those logfiles, those patches, those useless installations take their toll. If only there was a really good program out there to return Winders to Vanilla every week or two (without wiping out Files That Matter) then I'd buy it.
Again I noticed how much faster a fresh install of Windows runs before those logfiles, those patches, those useless installations take their toll. If only there was a really good program out there to return Winders to Vanilla every week or two (without wiping out Files That Matter) then I'd buy it.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
First steps back to Linux
Preparation for the big move to Linux on the main home PC has begun - but not without protest from other family members .... "oh no, NOT linux!" and "but I LIKE Windows!". As a compromise, we're going to move first to a dual-boot system. Anyone who wants to keep Vista can do so - and they can click through the "new device found" messages every time until Ballmer manages to persuade his programmers to find and fix the problem. If I need 'doze then I'll fire up my already-working and installed VMware image of XP Pro - it's a pretty minimal installation and so it should hop along quite nicely.
Step one - I'm going for Debian. Currently downloading the 3x DVD images of the AMD64-tuned version.
Step one - I'm going for Debian. Currently downloading the 3x DVD images of the AMD64-tuned version.
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