Thread: linux

I have tried Mint and that seemed okay but gave up on it. I guess I am addicted to Windows.

I had a virus wipe out my hard drive, all my software drivers and my start up Bios. MS worked 5 hours online with me and they could not get the machine to boot . They were very good about it but I had had enough. I had been playing with Linux and I made up up my mind, NO MORE.
I downloaded Ubuntu, burned it to a CD, installed it and never looked back. I do not regret it a bit. That was over a year ago.
I was up and running in an hour, no expense, with a user interface that is as good or better than MS.
It took a while to get used to it because it is different in some ways, It has it's own email and Open Office is included, along with Firefox Browser. There are programs available that will run MS programs, but they have a learning curve you have to climb.
The biggest hurdle is learning the language. But there is a world of help/tutorials available and a lot of people that will help.
I would not even consider going back.
Regards
Joe

I plan for a wipeout with a virus since one killed my hard drive years ago. Came from a scam on Ebay where I bid on a bogus article.
There are many drive cloners you can use, some free. So its just a matter of copying back to get a clean system back. I did this on my second computer, I ran windows 7 for the time it allowed then reset the date and renewed with the backup copy. Must admit I got fed up doing that, so now I use Windows loader by Daz, its legal ( I think) and dont load update KB971033.

I've played with Puppy Linux, it is good 'cos it will fit on, boot & run from a USB stick.

Originally Posted by rrobor

dont load update KB971033.

This is an update patch from Microsoft to detect pirate versions of its Operating system. If an OS is a pirate copy, this will detect it and you will receive messages telling you it is not a genuine copy of Windows. It will also create other problems for non genuine copies of windows eventually slowing it down to a crawl in some circumstances.

Linux is to computer users as MG cars are to motorists, i.e. "suit enthusiast".

Two observations on Windows computers:

1. If you're not running reliable antivirus AND malware prevention software, and keeping it completely up to date, I don't know how you sleep at night. It's only a matter of time before your PC will get clobbered. I think someone recently did some tests on unprotected internet-connected PCs, and concluded that your machine would likely be compromised within a matter of hours.....it really is that bad out there.

2. You need to keep a reliable backup of your system drive and all valuable data. I learned this the hard way when a new SSD died - no warning, no gradual increase in drive errors or weird noises, one day you switch on your PC and the SSD has effectively disappeared. I managed to restore the OS and most of my data to a spare HDD from windows backup, but ever since then I run an application that continually backs up EVERYTHING to a small external USB3 HDD. It runs automatically in the background, doesn't slow anything down, and I know I have 100% backup of OS, applications and data at 20 minute intervals. The thinking behind an external drive was that I can unplug it, stick it in my pocket, and get out in no time - if a bushfire did come through, I'm not keen on lugging an entire PC up the road. As a secondary backup, I put all data (documents, music, photos, outlook backup) onto a tiny 8Gb USB stick, and keep it offsite. This is refreshed every 3 months. I wouldn't trust the iCloud (or any other online storage offerings) as far as I could spit....some recent high profile hacking exploits have rather put me off the idea.

I was a Linux admin up until recently, and I love it for server work. It can be fun playing at home too. I agree ubuntu is probably the best home user Linux system around right now.

I agree on the enthusiast bit. Though it is slowly getting better. The drivers available now ar light years ahead of what it was like 10 years ago.

I also STRONGLY agree on backups. Almost nobody I know has enough backups. CD/DVD just aren't reliable enough. IMO unplugged external hard drives are the best option. Very stable.

I have two 500g external disks. I run a windows program called robocopy to do n incremental back up all photos and home movies (about 150g worth) along with all docs. I swap disks on a weekly basis. One is at home UNPLUGGED completely, and one lives at work with me. The reason unplugged is s important it a lightning strike will nuke everything connected by the smallest bit of copper. The offsite is so it survives the house burning down

Cheers,
Dave

I like Ozkaban's professional approach. I used to use Norton Ghost for my backups, and then switched to Acronis True Image Home. I run 2 x 1TB hard drives on my desktop, one for backups only. I usually back up once each month, or more frequently if I start hearing strange noises from my hard drive. Doesn't get around the problem of a power surge or a house fire, though.

The problem I have found ( from bitter experience after a mother board failure) is that the backups from these programs can only be restored to a similar computer ie not one with a new, different motherboard

Now, I'm off to do this month's backup

Ozkaban - good to hear how you do things; I was starting to think I might be paranoid !

I didn't know about robocopy, but I now use Genie Timeline:

Genie9 | Solutions-For Home | Backup and Restore Software with Data Protection Utilities for Windows

I think the main difference is the backup frequency, although I'm sure robocopy could be set up to do the same thing. With Genie timeline my entire system is never less than 99% backed up at any instant in time, as it is to all intents and purposes continuous. Never have to do anything at all, it just runs in the background and works.

II think I've got the lightning strike/power outage thing covered. I have surge/overvoltage protection installed on the main power board outside the house, then everything in the home office (power and phone connections) runs through a large UPS. We are in a lightning-prone area, but nothing has ever got past the powerboard let alone troubled the UPS.

You'll recognise our place - its the house with the armoured roof, anti-tank ditch, and the concrete anti-terrorist blast wall......

JillB - that's what caught me out about the SSD; being solid-state I assumed it should be more reliable than a traditional HDD. Read various computer forums (or Google "SSD failed"...) and you'll see nothing could be further from the truth !

One vendor (who replaced mine under warranty) admitted that they have had a massive failure rate across all brands of first-generation SSD. Anyone who runs an SSD (even a small one as their system drive) needs their head read if they aren't creating a disk image regularly IMHO. One issue is that you really need to know what you are doing when setting one up - most people probably just pop it in the PC and run it like a normal mechanical HDD. This article will be useful for anyone contemplating this:

Can You Get More Space Or Speed From Your SSD? : Optimizing Precious Solid-State Storage

As I said, there is nothing more horrifying than going into the bios and finding that the entire C: drive (SSD) has vanished off the face of the earth, and it ain't coming back....

Originally Posted by munruben

This is an update patch from Microsoft to detect pirate versions of its Operating system. If an OS is a pirate copy, this will detect it and you will receive messages telling you it is not a genuine copy of Windows. It will also create other problems for non genuine copies of windows eventually slowing it down to a crawl in some circumstances.

The update from Microsoft can also do several other things and has caused problems with many legal computers. The latest version of windows uses your own computer to check if your program is correct or not . I bought windows 7, cost a great deal and it gave me 2 DVDs one is on my main computer, the old computer is used for games on the odd occasion and not worth the cost of a new operating system. The loader is a startup program which loads windows and when windows checks if its correct it views the loader and is happy with what it finds so tells mother at MS all is well.
So no its not a pirated copy, is it legal? well Microsoft says my copy is, so it must be.

Originally Posted by JillB

I like Ozkaban's professional approach. I used to use Norton Ghost for my backups, and then switched to Acronis True Image Home. I run 2 x 1TB hard drives on my desktop, one for backups only. I usually back up once each month, or more frequently if I start hearing strange noises from my hard drive. Doesn't get around the problem of a power surge or a house fire, though.

The problem I have found ( from bitter experience after a mother board failure) is that the backups from these programs can only be restored to a similar computer ie not one with a new, different motherboard

Now, I'm off to do this month's backup

I have one golden rule for backups... It has to be a normal filesystem. Same for RAID - I have to be able to remove one disk and use it in another pc.

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Ozkaban - good to hear how you do things; I was starting to think I might be paranoid !

I didn't know about robocopy, but I now use Genie Timeline:

Genie9 | Solutions-For Home | Backup and Restore Software with Data Protection Utilities for Windows

I think the main difference is the backup frequency, although I'm sure robocopy could be set up to do the same thing. With Genie timeline my entire system is never less than 99% backed up at any instant in time, as it is to all intents and purposes continuous. Never have to do anything at all, it just runs in the background and works.

II think I've got the lightning strike/power outage thing covered. I have surge/overvoltage protection installed on the main power board outside the house, then everything in the home office (power and phone connections) runs through a large UPS. We are in a lightning-prone area, but nothing has ever got past the powerboard let alone troubled the UPS.

You'll recognise our place - its the house with the armoured roof, anti-tank ditch, and the concrete anti-terrorist blast wall......

I'll have a look at Genie - robocopy is a command line utility (stands for Robust File Copy). It does incermental really well, and I just install a bat file in the start menu and run it when I decide to.

I don't back up the system or programs as I can recover/rebuild them. Can't get photos/videos/documents back though.

Cheers,
Dave

Thanks Ozkaban, looks like I will need to get down and dirty with robocopy. I always thought it was a DOS utility, and wouldn't work with the large files and file names.

I forgot to mention above that my PC works off a surge protector ( big fair dinkum professional one), and a good UPS, so that should take care of the spikes.

Have lots of smoke detectors through the house, but won't be stopping to disconnect all the leads from my desktop and unplug it in event of a fire. It is a rather large tower, and weighs a ton, so too heavy to carry when you are in a hurry