John, RE: Your 1a.
After deleting the Linux partitions from Windows, using Acronis Disk Director, removing GRUB was easy. I Booted from my XP install CD, went into Recovery Console, and did 'fixmbr'. 73. Mike NF4L On 1/5/2011 12:28 PM, John Ragle wrote: > As a long-time Unix and Linux user, I have the following comments... > > 1. It is indeed possible to have a dual-boot machine running both WIN > (e.g. WIN 7 or WIN XP) and Linux. > > 1a. The bootstrap loader ("GRUB") is not easy to remove, and I would > highly recommend you have a complete bit-image (not just a data-file > backup!!!) copy of your original, functional, system, including programs > and OS, before you try to install Linux. > > 2. Some amateur radio programs (e.g. FLDIGI) have very good versions > that run under Linux. > > 3. Some UBUNTU distributions load and run on my particular machines > (usually I use a Dell XPS 420 running WIN 7 Ultimate (32 bit)), and > others do not load properly. In particular, the last Ubuntu distribution > that I was able to load and use successfully ON THIS MACHINE was > 10.04.1. This seems to be somewhat dependent on the machine. > > 4. Various Red Hat (Fedora, etc) distributions work, but are a tiny bit > more difficult to install and extend. > > 5. It is not true that there are no virus issues with Linux. There are > specific Linux viruses, but since Linux is much less popular than > Windows, the creeps that write such malware have paid less attention to > it than to Windows. I speak from the experience of having to rebuild a > Linux OS that was virus-infected. Vide: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware > > 6. "Drivers" are still an issue. Ubuntu 10.04.1 would not recognize my > sound cards on the Dell XPS. This is disastrous for programs that > utilize a sound card for AFSK, etc. Red Hat's distribution would. Go > figure. > > In the best of all possible worlds, Linux is fine. It is small, very > reliable, almost virus-free, and when used with a windowing shell, it is > almost like a Windows OS. The main problem you might encounter is that > there is a paucity of applications for Linux, for the same reason that > the malware builders don't spend much time on Linux. > > If you try to operate from a console window in Linux, you are faced with > the same situation as with Unix...the command structure is quite > different, and there is a bit of a learning curve. The situation is not > as utopian as is sometimes said. Be prepared, in the worst case, to > rebuild your Windows from scratch (i.e. from your bit-image backup). It > is not too hard to get into a situation where a machine won't boot at > all without some outside help. > > John Ragle -- W1ZI > > ===== > > On 1/5/2011 11:16 AM, p...@n4lcd.com wrote: >> This has also been my experience. The ubuntu Dual Boot installation works >> great. >> Or you can run ubuntu off a CD. No anti virus needed for ubuntu. You can get >> used to ubuntu but still have Windows... > Ron, WB1HGA also wrote >>> Bob, >>> >>> if you are that concerned about windose, why not look into Linux. Both >>> 32 and 64 bit. The Linux system comes in different flavors with more >>> popular ones being Ubuntu, LinuxMint, Fedora. >>> >>> You then install Linux side by side with windose. This is called duo >>> boot. You chose which os you want to use. >>> The best part of Linux is, it's more secure! No viruses to worry about >>> like in windose! > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html