Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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James
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Questions regarding dual booting a vistas laptop.I’ve had it with Microsoft. I’ve bought a new laptop running vistas. Its really slow. Every time I use it, it's a mental battle- windows is constantly trying to take control of my PC to the point were it really interferes with functionality. So I’m going to try running linux .
I have a few questions I’d like help with before hopefully embarking on installing Ubuntu on my new laptop
1) Does vistas home edition have “Bit-locker”? If so, is this going to be a problem? How can I get around it?
2) When I re-size the hard-drive in vistas, is the spare partition still a FAT partition? I recall from an earlier use of linux around 10 years ago that installing linux onto a windows formatted drive wasn’t advisable. Is this the case?
3) My PC usage is mostly report writing, medium- complex data processing, mostly ‘simple’ broadband internet use (sometimes wireless, and occasional watching news clips, possibly listening to radio), along with some CD playing/ burning. Is linux capable of this use?
4) Has anyone here done this. Any hints/ tips to make the transision easier?
Thanks.
James
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bagpuss
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Could you find a live cd which linux will boot from to start with any see if it actually improves matters?
I am afraid the other questions I can't answer other than to suggest getting a copy of XP and getting rid of vista!
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Jonnyboy
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I have noticed that a fair amount of laptops being sold with vista have neither the ram nor the graphics card to use it successfully, plus that running norton can significantly slow you down.
I'm running it quite well on a 1gb ram machine with 128mb graphics, but I do find the constant questions before it will run stuff annoying.
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James
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Bagbpuss-
yes, there are a few linux packages that run on the fly from one CD. May well down-load & burn one of these first.
Jonnyboy-
yes, my first feeling was that it was short of RAM. Its got 512 Mb, and I thought that if I chuck another 512 Mb in, it should run quite smoothly. That’ll sort out the slow and sluggish run speed, but it wont win the James versus Microsoft battle for control of my PC . It’s a Toshiba satalite L30, so the bulk of its hardware has been around for a few years-its probably best suited to XP. Also, rather ominously on the ‘quick start’ instruction page, it tells you how to add more RAM!
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MarkS
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that spec doesnt sound up to vista to me.
Most linux distros will very happily resize the existing partitions without any problem. I've not tried it with vista myself but it works v.well with XP (Im writing this from a lappy with ubuntu 7.04 dual booting with win xp - although the xp is used only for one very old app that I need to use once every six months or so.)
I second the proposal to try a live CD. Although I have seen comments elsewhere that there is a problem withthe ubuntu live dvd given away with linux format last month - some gfx cards dont take to it apparently although its not generally a problem with ubuntu.
1gb of memory will always help though
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MarkS
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Re: Questions regarding dual booting a vistas laptop. | James wrote: | I have a few questions I’d like help with before hopefully embarking on installing Ubuntu on my new laptop
1) Does vistas home edition have “Bit-locker”? If so, is this going to be a problem? How can I get around it? |
I understood that bitlocker was optional - you need to enable it. Also I understood that it was onloy on the high end versions - corporate and pro
| James wrote: |
2) When I re-size the hard-drive in vistas, is the spare partition still a FAT partition? I recall from an earlier use of linux around 10 years ago that installing linux onto a windows formatted drive wasn’t advisable. Is this the case? |
NTFS is resized perfectly well.
| James wrote: |
3) My PC usage is mostly report writing, medium- complex data processing, mostly ‘simple’ broadband internet use (sometimes wireless, and occasional watching news clips, possibly listening to radio), along with some CD playing/ burning. Is linux capable of this use? |
openoffice is ecellent (I use it on windoze boxes as well.
What data processing stuff do you need? Obviously plenty of tools but depends on exactly what you need.
| James wrote: |
4) Has anyone here done this. Any hints/ tips to make the transision easier?
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lots of people.
there are a few things I would do on top of a linux install. vlc, ntfs rw support, codecs, etc
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RichardW
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Check your power saving settings as mine came as standard set to run at 50% cpu speed whilst on batts but more suspect at 50% on mains if you dont change the power scheme when you pug it it.
Justme
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Barefoot Andrew
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A colleague recently purchased a new laptop from Dell; I advised on the spec and suggested to her that Vista was to be avoided and that she insist that Dell supply XP or the deal is off. Success.
Ubuntu is a doddle to install - and to use - and will happily run on a machine with 512Mbs memory. Only concern is if your specialist data processing tools require a Win32 environment.
A.
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orangepippin
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| Jonnyboy wrote: |
I'm running it quite well on a 1gb ram machine with 128mb graphics, but I do find the constant questions before it will run stuff annoying. |
These stupid questions are the single biggest fault with Vista, and I think is some kind of knee-jerk reaction from Microsoft that Linux is supposedly more secure. Maybe there is a way to turn it off! Apart from that Vista runs fine on several PCs here, but you do need the 1Gb RAM minimum.
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James
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my data processing is mostly graphical interpretation of numeric data. I've recently started playing with open office, and I dont rate the graphing function in OOo calcs. Its very simplistic, and appears to get confused with anything more than a straight forward bar-chart. Statistical analysis of data from the graph is just a total no-go
At the momment, excel does the job, although sometimes I find that limiting and have to resort to pen & paper..
I've noticed that OOo calcs gets confused with complex Visual basic as well, which could be a bit tricky.
There's a few 3d numerical models I use, but I access those via a remote logon to Newcastle Uni engieering server.
lastnight, I downloaded & burned unbuntu 7.04, re-sized my hdd and configured to boot from cd. The cd player didnt recognise the cd as a boot cd, and whent over to the hard-drive and booted vistas! aarrggh! I figured that somewhere in the downloading and burning it's probably been currupted slightly, so I'm forking out a massive £1.75 to buy a copy.
With regard to vistas, I've turned off all the fancy graphics now (its taken me days to figure out where all the off buttons are!), adjusted the power settings, and I hibernate rather than shut down. These three things have made quite a difference to the speed, to a point where its now quite manageable (if a little slow..). It sort of looks and behaves like windows used to....is that good or bad? ...better than it was, but still not great.
but now I've got the re-sized hdd & the cd on order, Ubuntu linux is definately going on the machine....
Is there a graphing or statistics package for linux? something tells me that with so many nerdy scientists working with it there must be....
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