Ubuntu!

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by Footbag

Just installed Ubuntu the other day on three desktops. One old Dell got a fresh install, but I'm dual booting it on a newer Gateway laptop and Systemax desktop.

All of this started with a HD crash that almost wiped out my data. I've been amazed at the tools available for Ubuntu. Gparted is awesome. Also using 3d desktop and the AWN dock on the computers that can handle it.

I'm with you! I love Gparted and I keep Ubuntu on a flash drive for doing partition work. Sudo Gparted baby! Also, Ubuntu on a flash is great if someone comes to me with a virus infected windows machine that needs everything backed up. It works 99% of the time and loads any external drive to do a back up. Just a few quick easy steps before performing a complete restore.

Another way Ubuntu is great on the flash drive is if you have to reinstall Grub after making changes to your MBR.

I haven't ran AWN dock in a long time. I should give it another shot!

[Footbag]

Originally Posted by Tristan

I'm with you! I love Gparted and I keep Ubuntu on a flash drive for doing partition work. Sudo Gparted baby! Also, Ubuntu on a flash is great if someone comes to me with a virus infected windows machine that needs everything backed up. It works 99% of the time and loads any external drive to do a back up. Just a few quick easy steps before performing a complete restore.

Another way Ubuntu is great on the flash drive is if you have to reinstall Grub after making changes to your MBR.

I haven't ran AWN dock in a long time. I should give it another shot!

Yup Gparted is awesome. I burned the LiveCD and partitioning takes seconds. Being that I didn't end up losing any data, the crash ended up being a good thing.

I need to get a new USB drive. But are older systems compatible? USB boot is a bios setting, correct?

AWN dock is pretty cool, but it is very buggy. But if drag and drop into the dock works, then you're good!

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by Footbag

I need to get a new USB drive. But are older systems compatible? USB boot is a bios setting, correct?

Bingo! It depends how old the machine is an if they have brought out any bios revisions. Being that you need Windows in most cases to flash bios most of the time this may be difficult if these machines got hosed or had a hard drive failure.

I would make a wild guess and say anything over than 6+ years might not have the usb boot feature. I just found something interesting. Seems you can boot into a CD that will boot from USB without BIOS support. Sounds kind of crazy to me, but it might be ideal for some:

http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action...parentID=10682

[Footbag]

Originally Posted by Tristan

Bingo! It depends how old the machine is an if they have brought out any bios revisions. Being that you need Windows in most cases to flash bios most of the time this may be difficult if these machines got hosed or had a hard drive failure.

I would make a wild guess and say anything over than 6+ years might not have the usb boot feature. I just found something interesting. Seems you can boot into a CD that will boot from USB without BIOS support. Sounds kind of crazy to me, but it might be ideal for some:

http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action...parentID=10682

As I think about it, yes... USB boot would be very cool. But booting to a CD just so you can USB boot doesn't really seem to efficient. I would bet that most of the computers I may encounter will be USB bootable, but if it's not, I'll just throw in the live CD. But if the computer is USB bootable, it's pretty sweet that you can have the fix on your keychain.

Got to show off Ubuntu during a meeting at work this morning. I was showing a sales rep and sales manager of a furniture company various ad's we've used, and I flipped the cube to open a new desktop. First a "whoa", then an "is that Windows 7?" I told them it was Ubuntu, which they had never heard of.

What kind of bugs are you finding on 9.10?