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Slightly Off Topic...

Started by Doc, January 13, 2009, 06:58:31 PM

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Doc

Hey folks,
I have been badly wanting to test the most recent version of EB-Linux and my Windows installation had reached the point of severe performance degradation, so I figured why not go for it...!?! I did all of my usual backups, wiped the drive and did a fresh installation of XP. Then I spent about 8 hours getting Windows and all of my software back in working order. (What a thrill)

Part II
Then for the first time (ever), I ran into a bit of a problem with Ubuntu.  :o

My typical drive setup for dual booting includes room for all of the window goodies, a small FAT32 partition to be used as a common storage area for both operating systems and then letting the Linux distro have everything that remains free on the drive (approx 10 GB). I've always just accepted the defaults for the Linux swap partition and directory tree, so on and so forth. I'm really not picky about such things.

I'm not exactly a newb to Linux and have successfully done this *numerous* times with a hint of trouble. However, by default this time around, QParted wanted to squeeze my Windows drive and take all of the remaining space, leaving much of nothing for my freshly installed Windows and the ton of software I had just finished adding...

Next, I selected the "use all available free space" and QParted then wanted to take the entire FAT32 partition as well.  No dice! :-\
I finally tried the expert or advanced partitioning option and found that the selections and/or user options were very poorly laid out and lacking as to what was gonna be installed where.... bottom line is that I bailed out rather than taking a chance of losing my previous work. Three time I tried the same routine with the same results, before giving up competely.  >:(

Question: Has anyone else had or heard of any difficulties with QParted in the latest Ubuntu release? Paul, you were a hardware guy once upon a time... do you think I might be running into a HD related problem instead? This laptop just passed the 5 years of use mark last month, so I wonder........

-Doc-

Ionic Wind Support Team

I would need a bit more hardware specs to help.  What size drive, version of XP, version of Ubuntu, etc. Could be a munged partition table and/or boot sector.  Never had any specific problems with QParted when I've used it.

I've been using Acronis Disk Director as of late to set up partitions and such, as it is one of the few that could successfully resize both Windows and Linux partitions.  Download their demo and see what it says about the drives partitions.  I used it to set up a quad boot system. 

However, with that said, I no longer have Linux on the same drive as Windows.   Last year external drives got so cheap that I bought a 500GB USB drive for $89 and use that for Linux work. 

Here is a 250GB external for $50

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4270702&CatId=136

Then I discovered virtualbox.  Which I installed Ubuntu 8.10 into and have been using that to develop the Emergence Linux version since I don't have to lose my work "flow" anymore by having to reboot.  Been copying things back and forth from my old Linux install using a shared directory and a Linux FS driver for Windows.

In any event, if you have a working Windows system be sure to create an image of the installation with all of your software setup.  Ever try "Image for Windows"?

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

The demo will run for 30 days I think, which should give you enough time to sort out the problems.  And can restore an image in 15-20 minutes instead of 8 hours ;).  It can even copy the image to a larger partition, which you can expand.

Paul.

Ionic Wind Support Team

Doc

Wow!

That's probably my best solution for sure. This old compaq laptop only has a 40GB drive, no DVD burner and few options other than to do a complete installation each and every time, which puts a limit to a lot of possibilities. Last time I looked, I couldn't come close to an external drive half that size, for twice the $$.

FWIW, to date none of my diagnostics have flagged anything to be wrong with the drive so far...

...I'll bust open the piggy bank and see if I can be the new owner of an external drive and we'll take it for another spin. :)

Thanks for the info, Paul.

-Doc-

mrainey

Quotebe sure to create an image of the installation with all of your software setup

Doc,

I make an image once a week and store it on a separate partition and also on an external hard drive.  If the system gets completely trashed, it's fifteen minutes to get back in action, as Paul said.

I use BootitNG to make the images, which is made by the same company (Terabyte) as Image for Windows, but adds a boot manager.  It's been absolutely reliable - I haven't reinstalled Windows from scratch for years.


                                              Mike
Software For Metalworking
http://closetolerancesoftware.com

Doc

As for the image backup solutions, that's really something I should have addressed a long time ago.  :-[


I've heard some good stuff about BootitNG, so I'll have a look again.
None of this has ever been a problem really... but I no longer have a desktop computer to serve as a backup to the laptop (or for backup purposes in general). Part of what I didn't mention above is that I use the recovery version (Linux based) of PM to manually preset the partitions just as I want them to be (FAT32, Swap & Linux partition) prior to doing an installation and then just let QParted verify the setup and fill in the blanks. as it will...

..I was just baffled as to why all of a sudden it no longer works for me, I guess.

Thanks for the input guys!

-Doc-


Doc

FWIW, I tried yet again to get the dual-boot setup working and yet again had the exact same problems with the partitioning. :'(

...but that's okay, because I now have a Ubuntu only laptop.



Again.  ;D

Once I have the wireless working and all of the updates done, I'll take EB Linux for a spin (YaY!) and as Governor Arnold might say...
"I vill be bach!"  ;)

-Doc-

Doc

All is well. I'm now a happy camper and have a full blown Linux laptop with EBasic.

..I guess you could say that I have a happy-lappy.   ;D

-Doc-

Ionic Wind Support Team

Glad you got it going again Doc.  As soon as I am done with the visual designer I will post another Linux update that has been sitting on the drive for a while.

You kind of reminded me by running the control demo and posting the screen shot ;)

How do you like 8.10?  The only problems I had on my main machine was the usual ATI driver crap that all linux users must suffer through.  At least all linux users that have ATI cards, lol.

Paul.
Ionic Wind Support Team

Doc

No rush on my part Paul.... from the looks of the sample files (and digging around in the ebstd.incc), I'd say you have plenty enough to keep me busy for a good while. Speaking of... is the include file a pretty good representation of te stuff that *is* working? ...I noticed some browser goodies in there that were not commented out and you know from years gone by just how much I like playing around with the browser control.  :) No biggie though if it isn't ready yet.

How do I like 8.10?
Truly undecided so far... one thing that they have added that I already enjoy is tabbed file browsing right in the Nautilus app. That makes life very simple!

ATI problems? Heh... I can assure you that *that* not a problem with this old hardware.  ;)

Thanks for keeping the EB-Lin program running, Paul! I know it doesn't really help your financial bottom line much, but it sure is cool to have finally. 8)

...I've been chawing at the bit for months now to jump back in.

-Doc-

Ionic Wind Support Team

Doc,
The include file is the objective, not what is done.

Much of the control subsystem was finished when I took a bit of a break on it, still a lot to do though.

The goal still is to be able to compile native Emergence commands in either the Windows or Linux compilers without having to change anything.  And I got pretty far with that as evidenced by a few of the sample programs posted.  The tinyIDE was built with Emergence as well.

Paul.
Ionic Wind Support Team

Doc

It's all good!

Before doing the Ubuntu installation, I grabbed the entire help folder from EBDev, now have the CHM viewer hooked up, sample files loaded and ready to go. (I pretty much knew that I was gonna trash the Windows installation before I even got started, so I grabbed all of the **important stuff**)

-Doc-