Last night I was trying to resize my partitions on my laptop to allow more room for my /home partition. Whatever I did didn't work and when I rebooted the grub didn't work. Left me with a computer that wouldn't boot in windows or Linux. The only thing I had left to do was grab my original Linux cd disc and boot in the live cd. I was worried I'd lost all my data including all the stuff I had downloaded. This is where nightmares and flashbacks from being a windows user for so long came in. Nothing could have been smother than the reinstall. It took less than an hour, maybe even less than a half hour to complete the reinstall and have me back up and running. Actually, when windows crashed on me it took hours to reinstall, not only that, but the reinstall discs are loaded with bloat ware that I have to clean out before I can install what I want. This machine will not be getting an upgrade to Vista. If windows dies ever again, I'll not be putting it back on my laptop. Something I found interesting about Linux, was I didn't loose anything, all my files are still there. One other thing, Linux now works better than it did before the reinstall. It boots faster, the grub had to be redone and Linux performed the action for me. I watched the boot up and didn't notice any failed items as before. Whatever I had done wrong the first time got corrected with a fresh install of the /root partition. After only a few weeks now of using Linux, (PCLinuxOS) I no longer get homesick for my old windows programs. Occasional I'll have to switch back to windows for something, but I am learning ways to get around it in Linux when I can. Thanks Melbo, for starting this sub-forum and anyone else that had a hand in giving it space. I tried a couple of the Linux forums, but didn't stick around for very long. I never did get that 500 GB HDD to work in Linux, so I moved it to my wife's desktop as kind of a backup location for it. None of the help from the Linux forums gave me any answers to why, how, or what for to get it working. That brings me to the question, "Has anyone installed a Linux distro on a Vista machine?" The reason I ask is, there is a computer store that sells everything I'd need to build a new computer. They also have returns and display models they sell at reduced prices, cheaper than what I could build one for. Problem is, they have Vista installed. I wondered if I could double boot with it or probably my first act would be to stick in a Linux live cd and format the drive giving it all into a Linux machine. Is there hardware issues I'd need to know about?
Some one hit a light pole and my power went off and on three times and it wiped out one of my profiles, but I put in the Linspre 5 rescue disc in and it restored it and kept all my files except for the ones I got from CNR. Great program.
I am running a dual boot with Vista. The only difference being that you should use Vista's partitioning tool instead of the one on the Linux livecd. Check out the hardware on any new computer for compatibility with your linux distro and you can avoid many headaches. Mike
After booting back up in Linux I did find that the reinstall did blitz a few of my downloads but not all. Can't figure that! However, after playing around with the package manager I found that many of my programs also had upgrades. I also found some I'd read about and checked those for install too. the only personal settings I had to reenter my user name and password was for two forums I use. Something else, when I was doing the upgrades, I somehow blitzed Amarok which I use in the background to play music files. So, I had to go back and retrieve that. I've finally gotten comfortable with some tweaking of the way Linux works for me. I'm getting around to test some of those downloads. I was already surfing the net with Firefox, today I downloaded Sea Monkey for testing. For now.... Linux rocks No regrets.
The only thing i miss about Linux is Flash player, I can't play some sites videos. What is the Linux equivalent?
What type extensions are you trying to watch? I've tracked down some plugins for firefox to play just about anything I view online. Matter of fact, I can't think of any issues with Linux not having an alternative to windows in the way of video replays. Utube downloads are flv files and can be played using Kaffine. It will also play dvd's. Use the package manager to locate what you're looking for in players and plugins. Mplayer plays my downloaded TV shows and movies. Amerok plays music files as good as any windows player. OTT, what release of Linux are you using? I'm using PCLinuxOS, but Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and many others work just about the same as far as I can tell. Some of the names may be different, but what I do is a search in the package manager using key words and in no time at all I find what I need and have it downloaded and working, no reboot or anything. I've just today downloaded 'PCLinuxOS 2008 Gnome' and tested the live CD. Not sure if I'll upgrade just yet or not, want to find out more about it first. Like can I use my existing Linux partitions and just upgrade the OS and will it blitz my personal settings, etc.?
Linspire 5. Some videos just lock up everything, some just get video, and some get only sound. Been having this problem since ATT took over SBC. Savage forums are no longer on found on the server.
For no particular reason other than I had down loaded a bunch of stuff from the Package Manager I wanted to totally wipe all the unwanted programs and settings. I put in my original PSLinuxOS disk and formated all the Linux drives. First I saved all the files and settings in the home drive that I wanted to keep and went for it. As a result, in about 4 hours I had all the stuff back that I did want and Linux is working for me better than ever. In the mean time, I did not hurt my windows drives and only have to go into windows for some programs that I've not found a satisfactory replacement for in Linux. Viewing downloaded movies and listening to downloaded music is not a problem in PCLinuxOS. I was ready to pitch this old laptop because of windows and all the problems I was having with HP. Now that I have Linux, I should be able to milk more time out of it. BAT1, I've not had those kind of issues with Linux. Early on I did have a few problems and sometimes my computer overheats with videos. You might be having a heat problem with the hardware. Not saying that would be it, but laptops do have lockups from overheat issues. That happens to me even in windows.
