Occasional Observations

I'm abandoning the Windows 7 Beta. It's an inevitable decision and has probably been obvious all along as there is simply no point in using a host machine running Vista for *any* feature-rich VM if it has only 2GB of memory.

It's certainly possible to use Vista and VMware Player for a lite Linux distro, or an XP installation that is content to work with 512MB. But expecting a new MS operating system to run fast and mean on a Vista host ... well, that's a leap of faith.

And since Vista is my host OS, it pretty much kyboshes the idea of running W7 at all in Beta. I'm most certainly not going to install a time-bomb OS on either of my production machines, and my sandbox machine is currently awaiting a new hard drive. Actually, scratch that, it has only 1GB of RAM.

It's not a difficult or heart-wrenching decision to abandon the W7 Beta. I liked the wallpapers, if that's any consolation. Had it been an OS that looked like it would make up for all the many, many things that are evidently wrong with Vista, like being able to run with 1GB of memory as I originally assigned to the VM, then I'd have been ready to invest time and effort in installing software, playing with the OS and getting a feel for how it could change my life.

Instead I'm just frustrated. And I still don't think a Mac is the answer either.

Labels: tech, virtualization, Vista, w7, Windows7

Windows 7 isn't in Beta phase, it's in Beta farce! Blaming unexpectedly high traffic to their website, Microsoft pulled the plug on the 2.5 million public Beta downloads of W7 yesterday. Hardly a great start.

It clearly shows there's pent-up demand for a better version of Windows. XP was OK, but Vista was supposed to be better. In some ways it is, but it's also bloated and over-complicated. So Microsoft has wisely decided to cut bait, even before Vista SP2 is upon us, by pushing through the next-generation OS, Windows 7.

At least I hope it's the next-generation and not a poorly-disguised Vista SP2.

Disappointing to have to wait a little longer for the public Beta of 7. Let's hope it is worth it.

Labels: virtualization, Vista, Windows7

I'm taking the bait and will be trying to download the first public beta of Windows 7 once it's available later today. My first installation will be within a VM enviroment, since it's taken me ages to work towards a very functional, stable version of Vista.

I'll post some updates in the coming days.

Labels: virtualization, Vista, Windows7

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.

Labels: Linux, Ubuntu, virtualization, Vista

Ole. I'm not alone with my Vista keyboard and mouse woes, they are also documented here. The problem is that - it ain't fixed and could happen again with the 32-bit version.

Labels: rant, Vista

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.

Labels: Linux, Vista

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.

Labels: Linux, tech, Vista

Having used Windoze since version 2, and gasped when 3.0 was able to switch to color on my humble 12" color monitor, I've become accustomed, over the last 18 years or so, to the "Bill Gates Appreciation Moments" - those minutes / hours / weeks when you stare at an hourglass or a revolving ball or whatever.

The latest round of updates with Windoze Vista has really taken the biscuit. Redmond, congratulations, you knocked out my mouse! Yay! That takes some doing. MORONS. One of the core computing components that's actually been around longer than 'doze. And some bunch of idiots with an "update" managed to completely knock out my USB mouse - plus my spare (plus a wireless model that has the Mark of Redmond stamped upon it, which means it must be Approved By Steve, right?).

I grew up with keyboard shortcuts so it wasn't a problem, just a monumental pain in the butt to actually navigate around the "most advanced Windows ever" using keyboard shortcuts because all three of my mice were disabled. After so many rounds of moronic "if you have the CD, insert it now" cycles, and even contacting the MS chat helpdesk for a laugh (forget it people, Balls-up-mer was off duty and I got some n00b working from scripts ... managed to trip it into an "ok #insert customer name# goof after a couple of minutes because I asked a mildly-taxing, Turing test-style question which got "it" - the call center robot - kinda flustered) I started hacking. Safe mode, device manager, delete those problematic devices and reboot. 'xcept Billg thought of that and the bastard had second guessed it. Fuuuuuuuuck.

The problem started with last week's "security updates". Maybe some M$ moron worked out that a mouse or a keyboard could be a security risk - that's where these naughty hackers type their stuff, right? Right!!!!! So let's disable both, just in case. Right on! Have another sip of the Kool Aid.

And then there's the memory hole problem with Vista. My household PC has a respectable 2GB of RAM. It cost enough, a year ago. WTF am I supposed to do, sell my car for extra RAM so I can run bloatware? Recent "updates" have led to messages saying that I should close some programs because memory is running low. Nope, we're not talking about the 50 bloat services running in Vista, we're talking about my freaking applications. AAAAAARGH. Vista is like public transportation services: it would run perfectly without anyone using it, getting in the way.

Our home PC is a powerful beast - less than a year old, with an AMD 64 quad-core chip - and it struggles to run Outlook and Winamp at the same time thanks to recent 'doze updates.

As a solution, I'm going virtual. I'm looking for a good 64-bit distro and then I'll put VMware on top (Microsoft VM? Get out of here! Windows on top of Windows, that's a joke!). As I've invested in various software over the years, I'll still have a Windows version running as a VM, in fact I've already got a tame XP installation, an OS that was actually quite good in the end. But Vista? As a friend recently said, it is a TRAIN WRECK.

Dear reader. You might think I'm rather annoyed at Microsoft. You might be right.

Labels: rant, virtualization, Vista

After all the recent probs with Vista, maybe SP1 is the answer? The installation was super-smooth and trouble-free. Let's hope it's the start of a great relationship.

Labels: nerd, tech, Vista