Oh dear, I attempted to install Linux Ubuntu on my PC, however, now it loads neither operating system (I'm typing this on my ipad). Hopefully re-installing Windows will make my desktop useable again.

 

So, from my experience:

Installing Linux on a PC can be dangerous.

 

 

As for me, I shall never try that again!

 

Installing any operating system on a pc can go wrong if your pc doesn't meet the minimum requirements. What went wrong with yours? Do you have at least 1gb of RAM?

 

A good idea when installing a new operating system is to get a replacement used hard disk off Ebay. They cost next to nothing. Remove your old hard disk first and install on the new one. If it goes wrong, you can swap back to your old hard disk.

My advice is to partition the hard drive and keep the operating system(s) separate from all your data, increasingly important as hard drives get ever larger.

 

Then use an imaging program like Drive Image etc, plenty of free ones available, and keep an image of the operating system on a remote or second internal hard drive, updating the image with any upgrade from time to time.

 

Then restoring the stored image can look after any disaster in minutes, including the worst forms of virus infections, saving much wasted time carrying out repairs or re-installation.

Worth also mentioning trying out the Puppy version of Linux (now at version 5.2.8) This is especially useful for old computers and laptops with low spec hardware. You can down load it and burn an ISO image to a CD and boot from that, or make a bootable USB pen drive. You never need to install it to a hard drive - so little risk there, and it will run entirely in ram (it only requires a minimum of 128MB). As a result it runs like greased lightning even on old low spec hardware. Oh and it runs almost all the software from the UBuntu software repositories too, so has a massive free software base. I've been using it for ages on an oldish netbook, and would never go back to anything else.

If you opt for a full install of Linux, most versions support a program called virtualbox (free - open source) which enables you to run other operating systems (Windows) within a window on your PC without rebooting. Alternatively many straightforward windows programs will run perfectly well under WINE a windows emulation program.

Finally, if your windows system dies and you can't boot your system, booting with a live CD of Linux such as Parted Magic will give you a superb range of tools to try to rescue your system, or data! All free. Great stuff and I've never understood why more people don't try it.

Like Pedelecs almost all flavours of Linux have very active and helpful forums which can help out the newcomer more effectively than Microsoft do and often within minutes of posting on them.

You can tell I'm a fan .

Phil

 

(currently using UBUNTU 10.10)

My advice is to partition the hard drive and keep the operating system(s) separate from all your data, increasingly important as hard drives get ever larger.

 

Then use an imaging program like Drive Image etc, plenty of free ones available, and keep an image of the operating system on a remote or second internal hard drive, updating the image with any upgrade from time to time.

 

Then restoring the stored image can look after any disaster in minutes, including the worst forms of virus infections, saving much wasted time carrying out repairs or re-installation.

 

I'm not sure whether Drive Image would work Flecc because Linux takes over the boot sector, which makes returning your disc to how it was before a little tricky. Can Drive Image re-write the boot sector when restoring?

 

Word of warning: Some PCs especially laptops have the reovery software on a hidden partinion that you can boot to with the right key-strokes. Linux re-writes the boot sector and all reference to the hidden partition is lost, so no recovery. Not so bad if you have a recovery CD.

Yes, most of these imaging programs can, for example I also use Paragon and the well known Acronis version does as well. There are also unhiding possibilities in some partitioning programs that I've used.

 

In general these disc imaging programs can rewrite any part of the disc surface, boot sectors often shown as separate and optional for inclusion or able to be imaged and restored independently. Here's a Paragon multi drive screen showing the options from whole drive down to just the MBR:

 

[ATTACH]2854.vB[/ATTACH]

Some macs can run Windows XP in native mode (i.e. boots straight in as the operating system) and / also some Macs can run a Visualized version (i.e straight from the Mac desktop) Apple supply the software for free to do it. I think its called BootCamp (or similar ?)

 

You could run Quicken in these modes. Quicken is one of those programs that never seems to have been improved or better than the original version. I run Quicken 2002 (not on a Mac !) but have yet to find any home accounting program to beat it.

 

Good luck.

 

Rgds

iMactastic

 

About a month ago my recently acquired Mac obsession reached a new peak when I took delivery of a spanking new 27" iMac 3.4 Ghz computer. At first when placed it on my 5 foot wide desk I thought this is huge, maybe I should have gone for the smaller 21.5" version, with the lower specification, but now I realise I made the right decision, any other computer I use looks small and feels painfully slow after this large baby.

My one came upgraded with 2 Tb hard drive and 16 Gb of ram, but I managed to save over £500 on the regular retail price from Apple and got it for £1800. Yes it is still expensive, but to coin a phrase, I'm worth it, and I have since sold my Mac Mini and Windows PC for over a £1000, so it has not cost me a huge amount of cash.

 

I already had Parallels 7, so I installed it and Windows 7 just to be able to run a couple of programs that are not available for the Mac, one of them being Quickbooks 2012 which I picked up for less than £50 from eBay.

Now that Macs are also vulnerable to viruses, I installed a free copy of Sophos Anti-virus software. Then I loaded the 2011 copy of Office for the Mac that I got for the Mac Mini and after trying several browsers decided Google Chrome suited me best.

As a backup, I am using Time Machine and an old 250 Gb external hard drive connected by USB. This isn't quite big enough to save everything and I did contemplate getting a Time capsule or other Mac Lion compatible NAS, but they are quite expensive, so I might just go for 500 Gb external hard drive with a firewire connection.

About a month ago my recently acquired Mac obsession reached a new peak when I took delivery of a spanking new 27" iMac 3.4 Ghz computer. At first when placed it on my 5 foot wide desk I thought this is huge, maybe I should have gone for the smaller 21.5" version, with the lower specification, but now I realise I made the right decision, any other computer I use looks small and feels painfully slow after this large baby.

My one came upgraded with 2 Tb hard drive and 16 Gb of ram, but I managed to save over £500 on the regular retail price from Apple and got it for £1800. Yes it is still expensive, but to coin a phrase, I'm worth it, and I have since sold my Mac Mini and Windows PC for over a £1000, so it has not cost me a huge amount of cash.

 

I already had Parallels 7, so I installed it and Windows 7 just to be able to run a couple of programs that are not available for the Mac, one of them being Quickbooks 2012 which I picked up for less than £50 from eBay.

Now that Macs are also vulnerable to viruses, I installed a free copy of Sophos Anti-virus software. Then I loaded the 2011 copy of Office for the Mac that I got for the Mac Mini and after trying several browsers decided Google Chrome suited me best.

As a backup, I am using Time Machine and an old 250 Gb external hard drive connected by USB. This isn't quite big enough to save everything and I did contemplate getting a Time capsule or other Mac Lion compatible NAS, but they are quite expensive, so I might just go for 500 Gb external hard drive with a firewire connection.

 

Congrats, nice Xmas pressie to oneself, those Apple Cinema screens look lovely, I am envious! As an almost complete convert to Apple I have just a single Windoze desktop machine left that I am contemplating swapping to an Apple, however I have a new Macbook Air 13" and a 3yr old Macbook Pro 17", so I'm not sure I can justify a new Apple Desktop machine (please Santa)! I could still junk the Windoze machine and just use my excellent 21" Samsung screen with either laptop.

 

I didn't know you could get 16Gig of RAM in an iMAC, wow.

 

Even though there was a recent scare with regards to more viruses in the wild for Macs, I think it is still a rarity, I use the free version of Sophos and did a scan, it detected a couple of Word docs with Windoze viruses in them, so still not a threat (and that was after 3yrs of constant internet access on the Macbook Pro).

 

I'm assuming that your iMac comes with a Thunderbird port? There are quite a few NAS devices out there now that use this connection, as you say they are expensive, but surely worth it

 

After 3 yrs of almost constant use of the MBP, I can't believe how well it looks and runs when compared to Windows laptops I have owned. My Windows laptops usually lasted around 2 years before I contemplated binning them and buying the next model, now I have none of the upgrade, data migration and application compatibilty problems I used to get. Sure there are a few niggles, but nothing in comparison and they are still dumb computers after all!

Actually, it was slightly late birthday present which I also use for business purposes, so Santa wasn't quite that generous.

I continue to be very happy with my decision to get the iMac. Still not decided on the back up device that I want yet. I have ruled out a Time Capsule because of the cost and the smallest size Apple do now is 2 Tb which is way more than I am ever likely to need and other available NAS devices are not compatible the latest Lion OS.

 

I am thinking a 500 Gb external hard drive will be adequate for my needs, preferably Firewire, but I am shopping around for one..

 

Thunderbolt hard drives are very fast, but just as expensive as a Time Capsule.

 

Another option is using Cloud storage. There are some who offer free storage, e.g. http://www.adrive.com/ offer 50Gb free.

Going off at a tangent slightly, my elderly iPhone 3GS started playing up recently so I booked an appointment at my local Apple store.

 

To cut a long story short, I walked away with a brand-new phone of the same vintage for the princely sum of £55 which includes a guarantee. Tempted as I was to simply lash out and get the latest iPhone at several hundred pounds, I really don't need it and £55 seems very reasonable to me for such a great smartphone.

 

I just wish Apple made ebikes!

 

Indalo

Going off at a tangent slightly, my elderly iPhone 3GS started playing up recently so I booked an appointment at my local Apple store.

 

To cut a long story short, I walked away with a brand-new phone of the same vintage for the princely sum of £55 which includes a guarantee. Tempted as I was to simply lash out and get the latest iPhone at several hundred pounds, I really don't need it and £55 seems very reasonable to me for such a great smartphone.

 

I just wish Apple made ebikes!

 

Indalo

 

 

I have an iPhone 3GS and am out of contract so could upgrade to the latest model. However, the 3GS works fine and I can't see what extra benefits a 4S would bring. For that reason, I stick with my old phone and enjoy the £10 / month GiffGaff sim only deal with no contract. I might upgrade when a significant advancement in features arrives.

That is interesting Tillson, prior to getting my latest all singing and dancing Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone, I used a the Nokia 6310i purely for calls and texting and had a GiffGaff sim, it was really excellent value for money with freecalls and texts to other people on GiffGaff.

 

If you only want a few calls and texts GiffGaff is the way to go.

 

I guess we all remember the days the pre mobile days and how we lived quite happily without them. Now, I can't live with out my Galaxy within grasp, how sad is that?

That is interesting Tillson, prior to getting my latest all singing and dancing Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone, I used a the Nokia 6310i purely for calls and texting and had a GiffGaff sim, it was really excellent value for money with freecalls and texts to other people on GiffGaff.

 

If you only want a few calls and texts GiffGaff is the way to go.

 

I guess we all remember the days the pre mobile days and how we lived quite happily without them. Now, I can't live with out my Galaxy within grasp, how sad is that?

 

 

LOL....its not sad......I take my Samsung Galaxy S11 absolutely everywhere with me even to the bathroom ......I just love it so much.......

 

Lynda

I changed from iPhone to Samsung Galaxy. The Samsung blitzes the iPhone in every respect - and no more iTunes, yippee! - and you can carry a spare battery. I think iPhones have had their day now that there's so many aps for Android.

 

I guess we all remember the days the pre mobile days and how we lived quite happily without them. Now, I can't live with out my Galaxy within grasp, how sad is that?

 

Yes, that is sad.

 

Back in the 1960s Anthony Newley once said "Stop the world, I want to get off".

 

I can imagine how he felt and have been determined to retain the option of being incommunicado. So I've established a marker line beyond which I won't go. That puts beyond bounds always carrying any mobile communication device or using social networking.

 

I do have a mobile, it's a phone only, almost permanently switched off, and I only carry it on journeys to cover emergency situations.

Yes, that is sad.

 

Back in the 1960s Anthony Newley once said "Stop the world, I want to get off".

 

I can imagine how he felt and have been determined to retain the option of being incommunicado. So I've established a marker line beyond which I won't go. That puts beyond bounds always carrying any mobile communication device or using social networking.

 

I do have a mobile, it's a phone only, almost permanently switched off, and I only carry it on journeys to cover emergency situations.

 

 

No its not lol.... come on Flecc.....join the Samsung Galaxy club......dont you want to be tempted.....deep down.....just a teeny teeny little bit......go on, you can admit it to us.....we wont tell anyone.....promise....

 

Lynda

Tony,

 

That reminds me slightly of my wicked stepmother, about once a year or annually if you prefer, she asks me to top up the credit on her mobile. When It always has £10 of credit, that is because it sits in a drawer switched off and never goes anywhere. Her reasoning is it is there just incase the landline goes down.

That's a sensible lady John! I make a phone call once every three months to ensure the SIM doesn't get cancelled and credit lost, but for me the phone is just emergency protection, it's ideal use.

 

Lynda, I really appreciate the advanced technology of such as the Samsung Galaxy S11 and love gadgets, but for me it would be a nuisance while not helping me in any way. When I'm out in the countryside, quiet and just about to take a wildlife photo, the last thing I want is phone call tones/vibration or even to answer a call. Nor do I want to be disturbed when out walking and deep in thought, and I've never felt the need to tell anyone that I'm in Tesco.

 

And I doubt anyone really wants to know that anyway!

I'm totally hooked, but empathise with you Tony. How many times have I had both hands occupied and unable to answer the thing, but at the same time wondering who it was and having to ring back as soon as I can to satisfy my curiosity.

e.g. New Years eve, my wife and I are in the cinema, the phone is on silent, but my son trys to call 3 times within 5 minutes just to find out where we are, not life,death or something more urgent:mad:..........thank goodness.

 

In my other guise, I do have to carry a phone due to on call commitments and a quick call can often quickly resolve what might have been a difficult issue.

 

Like them or loath them. mobile phones are part of life.

 

Like them or loath them. mobile phones are part of life.

 

With more than one per person on the planet, they certainly are. For many like yourself they are incredibly useful in both business and highly active social lives, especially when with 3G, but large numbers of us don't fit those profiles. It's often surprised me how many have inactive phones like me, just for emergency cover.

That is interesting Tillson, prior to getting my latest all singing and dancing Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone, I used a the Nokia 6310i purely for calls and texting and had a GiffGaff sim, it was really excellent value for money with freecalls and texts to other people on GiffGaff.

 

If you only want a few calls and texts GiffGaff is the way to go.

 

I guess we all remember the days the pre mobile days and how we lived quite happily without them. Now, I can't live with out my Galaxy within grasp, how sad is that?

 

GiffGaff is very good, especially their GoodyBags. £10/ month now gets you uncapped & unlimited data, unlimited text messages and 250 cross-network minutes.

 

However, I have just come across a TMobile sim only deal which is £6 / month for 300 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited data. It is a 12 month contract though.

 

I find that I never exceed more than 200 mins per month, so these deals are ideal for me. Virtually all of my internet access for things like this forum is done on a mobile device. It's great to be able to be able to dip into the forum & email to knock out a post or a reply whilst having a moment to spare. I would be lost without mobile data.