On Sat, 2006-12-09 at 21:28 +0000, john eayrs wrote:
<snip john defending his particular system in contrast to another>
> Wars of words where one person defends their particular system in contrast
> to another is not productive.
>
Indeed, and people trying to defend Windows so vigorously on a Linux
User Group mailing list is equally unproductive.
> I lost an extended partition last week there was no way that I could have
> retrieved the lost data in Linux but I was able to find written windows
> software that could do it.
Just because you couldn't do it with Linux doesn't mean it's not
possible.
> Knoppix was useful in the task in that I was
> able to copy the entire drive to another drive so that I did not overwrite
> any of the original data by accident. If I had to I could have done the job
> in DOS but it would have taken me a little time to write the software to do
> this. Knoppix was the quicker solution.
>
Knoppix is a fantastic tool for exactly this purpose. Where is the
freely downloadable Windows Live CD when you need one?
I am well aware that it is possible to make them using tools such as
bart pe builder, but it's not the same as downloading and burning an ISO
like knoppix.
> In another case I had some data on one disk which needed copying to another.
> I connected the drives to the machine up and thought I try to do the copying
> in Linux as it was a dual boot system.
So Linux does have its uses then?
> The connected drive was unmountable
> in Linux without putting in various commands which I would have had to look
> up (if I knew where to look).
Or asked your local LUG? We have a surprising amount of knowledge
amassed here. It amazes me how much people struggle on with issues, then
throw Linux out the window claiming it can't help without actually
asking if it can. It's quite rare on this mailing list for technical
questions or crys for help to go unanswered.
> I switched the machine off and did the job
> using BartPe xp on a CD.
>
Would this be an NTFS formatted partition? The NTFS filesystem which is
not very well documented outside Microsoft perhaps? So entirely
unsurprising that a Windows based live environment is able to cope
better than a Linux one, don't you think?
> I tried putting Ubunto on a laptop with 128MB of memory it failed.
Attempting to install Ubuntu from the live (Desktop) CD will do. The
Live (Desktop) CD needs enough memory to run the X environment, GNOME
and the installer.
However there is also an "Alternate" CD which boots to a text mode
installer.
It is possible to install in 128MB. I have just tested this and it hung
when starting up Gnome. I then tested the alternate CD on the same
machine and it worked fine.
In addition the Ubuntu documentation has one great hit if you search for
"low memory":-
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems
This page details how you can get Ubuntu running on machines with low
amounts of RAM.
> I know
> there are GURU's are would be able to do this with no problem. Putting
> Windows 98 on this machine was no problem.
>
Yes, putting an operating system from 1999 on hardware from that era
would boot fine, that makes sense. Especially given that the minimum
requirements for Windows 98 are a 486 and 16MB of RAM (24 Recommended).
Try running XP or Vista on that same machine for a more sensible
comparison.
> Each system Windows and Linux have their strengths and weaknesses where
> different users are concerned.
>
Yup. Totally agree.
> At the moment I am looking forward to watching films using mplayer on SUSE
> 10.2. But I have to do the reading on how to first. In windows I installed
> BSplayer and the various codecs with no problem. In less than 5 minutes.
>
Which to me translates to "I need to find out how to do something on
this new Operating System which matches my level of current knowledge of
an existing Operating System". This is entirely to be expected. I
wouldn't be surprised if I put a Mac running OSX in front of you, you
wouldn't be able to get movies playing on it (in certain formats) any
quicker than you would with Linux.
It's just *different* and as such has *different* ways of doing things.
Some are better, some are worse, but they are on the whole, different.
Cheers,
Al.
