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
Monday, April 14, 2008
Vista: Beyond the perverse
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.
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
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
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Finally in-sync
Sometimes, the bundled solution isn't the best. This definitely applies to some of the tools within Windows Vista. This time I'm talking about syncing offline files, but first, some context.
Yes, another Vista rant. But I'm entitled to this one, having been through the pain of having to completely reinstall Vista on my notebook. I had actually weighed everything up and had decided to revert to XP, except that Vista seems to have done something proprietary to the MBR on my hard drive and the XP installer couldn't see it. There was NO WAY that I was going to make fresh backup copies of the 30 or 40GB-worth of data on my D and E drives and then format the whole drive. Just forget it.
Anyway, having reinstalled Vista I made the mistake of reactivating it on the first day - and of course the install was corrupted, because after a shaky six days I needed to reinstall again. This time I couldn't afford any offline time at all so went out and bought a spare notebook, which has now been deployed as an upgrade for a colleague. She's delighted...
Fingers crossed this time around and no I could not wait for SP1 to come out. For the first ever time, I chose the "upgrade" option - upgrading a non-functional version of Vista to a functional version is an upgrade, right? And yes, I'm back in the honeymoon period where the system is actually really quite fast despite having only 1.5GB of memory. I picked up a 4GB USB stick at CeBIT which works nicely with readyboost and my apps open a bit faster, too.
Of course there is an upside to a clean install - you lose some of the drekk that's built up on the system. Programs that I'd installed, messed around with and then dumped. From here I have resolved to restrict such installations first to my XP VM that's running in VMware Player (Google around to find out how, it's pretty simple with QEMU) as it's pretty simple to roll back a VM, also I have a couple of backup copies on various drives.
Getting to the point, I sometimes for convenience carry around a local copy of important ongoing work files - because I can't be online when travelling. I decided to once again try the sync option built into Windows, but it still sucks really badly and leaves multiple temp files at both ends when trying to sync - I haven't had the time, energy or inclination to solve this. Instead I spent a whole $30 (about the price of a Chinese take-away for two now in Euros) on a super little program called GoodSync from a company called Siber Systems.
It's my second $30 purchase from Siber - the first being the wonderful RoboForm, which stores all my login passwords and other credentials, including my credit card details, and helps me fill-in online forms. I keep the RoboForm data on a fully-encrypted USB drive so the data is safe and sound.
GoodSync is exactly that - and it's lightning fast, too. This is perhaps the most visible difference between it and the built-in offline file sync capability of Vista, apart from those temp files which can quickly fill a few GB if you're not careful. Once again, proof for me that something that's free has no value.
Yes, another Vista rant. But I'm entitled to this one, having been through the pain of having to completely reinstall Vista on my notebook. I had actually weighed everything up and had decided to revert to XP, except that Vista seems to have done something proprietary to the MBR on my hard drive and the XP installer couldn't see it. There was NO WAY that I was going to make fresh backup copies of the 30 or 40GB-worth of data on my D and E drives and then format the whole drive. Just forget it.
Anyway, having reinstalled Vista I made the mistake of reactivating it on the first day - and of course the install was corrupted, because after a shaky six days I needed to reinstall again. This time I couldn't afford any offline time at all so went out and bought a spare notebook, which has now been deployed as an upgrade for a colleague. She's delighted...
Fingers crossed this time around and no I could not wait for SP1 to come out. For the first ever time, I chose the "upgrade" option - upgrading a non-functional version of Vista to a functional version is an upgrade, right? And yes, I'm back in the honeymoon period where the system is actually really quite fast despite having only 1.5GB of memory. I picked up a 4GB USB stick at CeBIT which works nicely with readyboost and my apps open a bit faster, too.
Of course there is an upside to a clean install - you lose some of the drekk that's built up on the system. Programs that I'd installed, messed around with and then dumped. From here I have resolved to restrict such installations first to my XP VM that's running in VMware Player (Google around to find out how, it's pretty simple with QEMU) as it's pretty simple to roll back a VM, also I have a couple of backup copies on various drives.
Getting to the point, I sometimes for convenience carry around a local copy of important ongoing work files - because I can't be online when travelling. I decided to once again try the sync option built into Windows, but it still sucks really badly and leaves multiple temp files at both ends when trying to sync - I haven't had the time, energy or inclination to solve this. Instead I spent a whole $30 (about the price of a Chinese take-away for two now in Euros) on a super little program called GoodSync from a company called Siber Systems.
It's my second $30 purchase from Siber - the first being the wonderful RoboForm, which stores all my login passwords and other credentials, including my credit card details, and helps me fill-in online forms. I keep the RoboForm data on a fully-encrypted USB drive so the data is safe and sound.
GoodSync is exactly that - and it's lightning fast, too. This is perhaps the most visible difference between it and the built-in offline file sync capability of Vista, apart from those temp files which can quickly fill a few GB if you're not careful. Once again, proof for me that something that's free has no value.
Labels: nerd, rant, tech, virtualization
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Virtualized XP: the ultimate Windows version?
A few days into messing with virtualized versions of Windows and XP beats Vista hands-down - it'll get even faster when I've finished switching off all those unwanted services. Even had a conversation on Skype the other day with someone who was running it within a VM. I haven't gone that far, yet.
Running Vista within Vista was a mistake. My system(s) slowed to a crawl. It was agonizing. A colleague recently told me that these moments spent waiting for the mouse to respond / something / anything to happen actually have a name: Bill Gates Contemplation Moments.
Somewhere at home I've got a CD with the original release of Windows 95, which I haven't used since early 2001. I'm thinking about installing it as a VM and then loading up my copy of Railroad Tycoon - if I can find a working floppy drive to copy the info on to a USB stick. I think we've got a floppy drive somewhere in a box at home although there isn't one that's actually connected to a working computer.
Running Vista within Vista was a mistake. My system(s) slowed to a crawl. It was agonizing. A colleague recently told me that these moments spent waiting for the mouse to respond / something / anything to happen actually have a name: Bill Gates Contemplation Moments.
Somewhere at home I've got a CD with the original release of Windows 95, which I haven't used since early 2001. I'm thinking about installing it as a VM and then loading up my copy of Railroad Tycoon - if I can find a working floppy drive to copy the info on to a USB stick. I think we've got a floppy drive somewhere in a box at home although there isn't one that's actually connected to a working computer.
Labels: nerd, virtualization
Friday, July 20, 2007
Booting Vista within Vista
Don't try this at home - unless you have a ton of patience (and a few GB of RAM): I booted Vista within Vista, as a virtual machine. My dual-core machine with 1.5GB of RAM normally has enough to run Vista - allocating half of that to the VM was a mistake.Meanwhile, XP Pro runs flawlessly as a VM in just 256MB RAM. I think that's a clue as to Vista's processor and memory-intensive demands.
MS offers the Vista VM as a free 30-day download but I don't think it'll even stay 30 hours on my machine unless I happen to stumble across a couple of GB of RAM this afternoon.On a totally different note, the Firefox plugin forecastfox has been keeping me up-to-date on the weather outside, and offers a
one-click look at the weather in my favorite locations around the world.Labels: nerd, tech, virtualization
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Virtually a new world
So far, so good in my first experiments with desktop virtualization. I'm trying the free VMware Player and Microsoft's also free, and more functional, Virtual PC 2007.
With VMware, functionality is more limited with the free player, although there is a good selection of pre-installed open source desktop and server and it didn't take long to discover EasyVMX, a donation-supported free site offering basic VM creator templates. Using this I was able to install Windows XP in VMware Player - as well as by simply creating a new VM in the more functional MS VPC2007.
Despite making some noises, neither company has yet offered any patch to make its VMs compatible with the other.
I also tried Ubuntu desktop Linux with both VMs. The out-of-the-box Ubuntu .iso install with VPC hung on some corrupted graphics, while WinXP installed perfectly; with VMware, the Windows installation doesn't (yet) have any network connectivity but the Ubuntu image I downloaded works perfectly. Perhaps I can also get a ready-installed Ubuntu image for VPC.
With VMware, functionality is more limited with the free player, although there is a good selection of pre-installed open source desktop and server and it didn't take long to discover EasyVMX, a donation-supported free site offering basic VM creator templates. Using this I was able to install Windows XP in VMware Player - as well as by simply creating a new VM in the more functional MS VPC2007.
Despite making some noises, neither company has yet offered any patch to make its VMs compatible with the other.
I also tried Ubuntu desktop Linux with both VMs. The out-of-the-box Ubuntu .iso install with VPC hung on some corrupted graphics, while WinXP installed perfectly; with VMware, the Windows installation doesn't (yet) have any network connectivity but the Ubuntu image I downloaded works perfectly. Perhaps I can also get a ready-installed Ubuntu image for VPC.
Labels: tech, virtualization
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