Well, I’m glad I have another 500GB hard drive coming in for dual boot installation of Win7 beta on my 64-bit “hog,” because the two low-spec offline (not in current use) comps were… a ta too low-spec for the 32-bit install. Well, that and the fact that neither could really use the dual channel memory I had available to boost them into “maybe” range.
Sooo, next week. A dual boot system to test Win7 against Ubuntu 8.10 on an AMD dual core with (too many) GiB of RAM and a (ridiculously over-powered for text and typical graphics) nice vidcard, etc. Not bleeding edge, but easily powerful enough to have run Vista had I wanted to.
Mini-micro-nano-update: First reports from Fedex had the hard drive coming in on Saturday the 7th. Nope. Updated this afternoon to Tuesday the 10th. ‘s’all right, though, because I have to try to do some remote system management for a client this weekend. It’ll be interesting, to say the least…
Oh, and the system I’m writing this post from? One of those underpowered computers (old 700Mhz slot 1 P-III) that I popped a bare 80GB hard drive into. Sure, I was only able to scrounge up 256MB of the antiquated memory it uses, but it’s running as well as most computers running XP with 2-4X the memory. Oh, and the hard drive? It was a… problem loading the Win7 DVD onto, because the antiquated motherboard can’t recognize anything larger than a 30Gb drive. *heh*.
So, how’s this system working so well? Puppy Linux. Booted from the CD. Loaded GPartEd and found and partitioned the drive. Loaded Puppy Linux onto it, configured GRUB and… good to go.
Slick OS.
BTW, the Puppy Linux live CD is a very cool troubleshooting tool all by its lonesome. Unlike the “bad old days” of live CDs, once the OS is loaded from the CD, it runs in memory, and when apps are loaded from the CD, they’re loaded and run in memory. Browsers are as close to “instant on” as can be imagined, for example.
But, as a tool for rescuing files from a non-bootable Windows system, a Puppy live CD is the first thing in my bag of tricks, because it reads just about any file system out there. Boot the CD, mount the unbootable drive and start hauling files off to a flash drive or burn ’em to optical media or transfer ’em to another hard drive. If a drive is too trashed for that, then I’ll dig out the data recovery tools.
Oh, and If you decide to use Puppy Linux on a regular basis, installing it to the hard drive is a task that approaches the trivial. Configuring the GRUB bootloader is a tad more messy, but not by much. But one can get almost the entire benefit of installing Puppy to the hard drive by simply installing all the Puppy boot files (as well as the config files and saved sessions–including software installs) to the hard drive and just using the bootloader on the CD. Leaves your original OS untouched and doesn’t even mess with your OS’s bootloader that way.
Just not too shabby. And the Puppy community seems to breed new Puppy versions like crazy. From a ChurchPup, for those who want loads of Christian Bible study and related apps, to multiple Puppy distros aimed specifically at the Asus eeepc, there’re loads of offerings.
Puppy Linux. G’wan, adopt a puppy.
Now that’s interesting. I’ve seen you talk about Puppy Linux – and MY Beloved (and the Munchkin, too!) are hard over for Linux. I happen to be one of the fortunate (?) ones in that my Vista has been chugging along quite happily.
The main reason I *haven’t* switched over to Linux is iTunes and PShop Elements-Premiere Elements. Not too sure about PShop (paid program, I really ought to keep using it, although I know there’s a good freebie with Linux), but I never had good luck with the Linux apps for playing my tunes… *sigh*
But that Christian Puppy is VERYVERY intriguing!
Kat, the neat thing about Puppy Linux is the way it does the live CD bit, which allows you to customize your “install” by adding apps (the first thing I do is install Opera), change settings, etc., and save them in a session file on your hard drive. When you finish playing with your Puppy session, simply reboot, remove the CD and–voila!–your original OS is untouched.
On the “Win7, not yet” front, though–*sigh*–silly me. The hard drive/BIOS limitation isn’t the problem I was lamely thinking last night (my plea is “innocent by means of brain cell late night coffee-deprivation” *heh*) because I have plenty of PCI IDE interface cards that’ll handle booting the 80GB drive. Puppy Linux was just a really, really easy way to gain access to the drive and use the computer where I was sitting instead of coming back to my “hog”.
And so it goes. I always carry a Puppy CD and a Puppy flash drive with me, in case they’re needed when I’m out and about. Sure, I carry other tools (software and hardware), but the Puppy portable OSes are amazingly useful.
As to the “essential Windows apps” issue, has David tried ’em out using WINE or Crossover Linux on his Linux ‘puter? I’ve found very few Windows apps that absolutely will not run using one of those. I’ve not tried iTunes (because I don’t like proprietary stuff controlling my media–one of the reasons I prefer Linux over Windows’ DRMed to death approach), but even it may be amenable to a WINE/Crossover approach.
Still, if you’re happy with Vista, why change? See if David’ll build you a Puppy flash drive to take with you when you might not have your notebook. Fun to carry an entire, customized OS along–and he might find the “pocket OS” useful as I do, for its toolish use. 🙂
Ha! Just checked the Fedex tracking page on yesterday afternoon’s hard drive order: Fedex says this Saturday… Maybe I’ll hold off on futzing around with the older boxes… 😉
Or not. I just got through doing some remote admin work for a client… on this only Puppy Linux-powered box. Sure, sitting here on the living room couch (I put this box back togther here last night so my Wonder Woman and I could at least be in the same room together–and futzing around with this old techie stuff doesn’t devour enough mental capacity to avert conversation, anyway) isn’t as comfy as my sooper-dooper comfy chair at my desk, and the old 17″ flat screen isn’t a patch on my nice 22″ widewcreen, etc., but I can get some work done easily on it, the cats can feel welcome (they are NOT in my office–too much stuff for them to play with, and all of it static sensitive–*heh*), so yeh, playing with my Puppy and getting some work done–a good thing. 🙂