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Today's Topics:
1. Re: formatting NTFS (Chris Knadle)
2. Recall on Laptops (ew)
3. Re: Recall on Laptops (Chris Knadle)
4. Re: Great meeting last night (Sean Dague)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 19:24:56 -0500
From: Chris Knadle<[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [mhvlug] formatting NTFS
Message-ID:<[email protected]>
Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
On Friday, March 04, 2011 12:45:37 Mark Wallace wrote:
You've got me back on my soap box about dual booting. It has a number
of crucial problems.
1) Because you can reach into the Windows partition to get things, you
can also by mistake corrupt your windows install.
The flip-side is that you can also fix Windows binaries that normally Windows
won't let you modify due to the file being in use. So for instance one very
typical thing to do is to use a Knoppix CD to scan an NTFS drive for viruses
with Clamav, or look through a non-booting drive for data to recover before
doing a Windows wipe/reinstall.
So regardless of the fact that it's *possible* to corrupt Windows if you
delete/alter the wrong file, there are also good reasons to be familiar with
transferring data to/from Windows NTFS partitions, too.
2) If you have downloaded a windows virus while on line in Linux, you
won't know it until you by mistake put it on the Windows partition where
it might get "executed" or shall we say, execute your system. My six
year old is no longer allowed to go on line in XP because it rarely
takes him more than two weeks to download some toolbar or free game that
screws up my whole hard drive with a virus.
Your Linux system can also get the virus if you've got Wine installed. What
you're describing is possible but I've yet to see anyone get a virus that way.
Additionally there are several versions of XP, only some of which allow for
privilege separation -- for instance my understanding is that XP "home"
edition runs everything as the super-user, so if you were running that this
would easily explain how your six year old could corrupt it so easily.
3) Maintaining two platforms is twice as much work. It's actually three
when Microsoft starts doing things like modifying their boot loader
which turns around and wipes out Grub. That happened to me.) Your
mounting issue is the third level of work. You wouldn't be having this
problem if your were just running Ubuntu.
Yes, any re-installation of the NTFS boot loader will wipe out Grub, so when
dual-booting you do need to know how to recover Grub and how to re-install it.
Microsoft doesn't play nice with the boot loaders on other OS's -- it seems
they don't even try, and it seems to be on purpose. That's not Ubuntu's
fault, and unfortunately there's no good solution to this other than Microsoft
choosing to stop being "a boot loader bully".
4) If you corrupt one platform badly enough, you might wind up having to
kill disk your hard drive and start over. If the Windows platform is XP
and you upgrade it faithfully, that will take hours, even on a broadband
connection. I got a Windows virus once that stopped my anit-virus
software and prevented my system restore from restoring. It's a lucky
thing that I had just backed up my data. I now keep my data on jump
drives and back up to A Drive,
Last time I've seen this in person was a boot sector virus back in the early
to mid 90's that a friend got that were going around at the time. I don't
understand what this has to do with Linux<-> Windows file sharing, though.
5) About the only things that I can't do Linux only are to upgrade my
GPS and run Windows proprietary software. If you are into heavy gaming,
that would be a problem. Wine only runs low graphics programs very
slowly and often can't find USB ports when you most need them. IT also
makes the income tax software useless.
Some Windows games run surprisingly well under Wine on Linux. Deus Ex, for
instance -- runs perfectly. Running Windows in a VM is able to solve needing
to run some Windows applications, but occasionally running Windows natively is
the only foolproof solution.
However realistically this is about sharing data between partitions and thus
between Windows/Linux on the same machine, rather than being "whether letting
Windows be or not to be" on that box.
6) Linux is different and the best way to make maximum use of it's
superiority is to be familiar with the Linux programs. Some of them are
very good but because they are free, there is nobody out trumpeting
their features. You might have something really good available for
free on Linux while you are using some out of date Windows program only
because you are familiar with it. If you were Linux only, you would
pick up the "savvy" that you need to do things in Linux faster.
If I had to use Windows, I would put it on a separate hard drive and
open the tower and unplug one hard drive and plug in the other, I have
had that much bad experience with duel booting.
Dual booting isn't for everybody. [Heh -- 'duel' booting, indeed. Nice one.]
-- Chris
--
Chris Knadle
[email protected]
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:30:56 -0500
From: "ew"<[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [mhvlug] Recall on Laptops
Message-ID:<1299285056.1586.12.camel@Mini>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
For anyone unaware, Nvidia has settled a class action suit for the large
number of dead laptops due to bad mobile GPU's.
Deadline is March 14 to file.
Unfortunately possessing the laptop may not be enough. Proof of
purchase seems to be needed. I'm not sure about Dell units though.
With the use of service tag numbers, they may have your info already.
Also take note, I think the matrix list of units is messed up on the
website. If you model is not listed, double check the product id number
seems to be a more accurate starting point.
Eric
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 20:16:08 -0500
From: Chris Knadle<[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [mhvlug] Recall on Laptops
Message-ID:<[email protected]>
Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
On Friday, March 04, 2011 19:30:56 ew wrote:
For anyone unaware, Nvidia has settled a class action suit for the large
number of dead laptops due to bad mobile GPU's.
Deadline is March 14 to file.
I believe this the settlement you're referring to:
http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/
Unfortunately possessing the laptop may not be enough. Proof of
purchase seems to be needed. I'm not sure about Dell units though.
With the use of service tag numbers, they may have your info already.
Also take note, I think the matrix list of units is messed up on the
website. If you model is not listed, double check the product id number
seems to be a more accurate starting point.
Eric
Apparently this settlement is limited to a set of HP-Compaq, Apple MacBook
Pro, and Dell laptops. Doesn't seem to involve IBM/Lenovo laptops.
-- Chris
--
Chris Knadle
[email protected]
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2011 08:04:23 -0500
From: Sean Dague<[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [mhvlug] Great meeting last night
Message-ID:<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Jack and I were trying to figure out the best way to get me image
content that people take for the LUG. We hope to eventually have an
image gallery up on the site (and if anyone is interested in taking on
that project, please let me know). Email is typically bad.
Until then, a pretty good option is dropbox, because you can share
folders to me, and it will just sync to my laptop, then I can post them
on the site. If you don't already have an account, please snag one here
- http://db.tt/PBw1rwg
Once you end up with a dropbox account one way or another (I know a lot
of folks already have them) just put all the images in it in a MHVLUG
folder and share that folder to [email protected].
Thanks,
-Sean
On 03/04/2011 05:02 PM, [email protected] wrote:
My shots came out a bit better than anticipated. I did some minor tuning and am
converting them all to smaller jpeg images. I will try to tar them up and get
them out later tonight.
Really enjoyed the meeting but for some reason I can't quite nail down, I've
had some trouble sleeping lately....
JC
------Original Message------
From: Sean Dague
Sender: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
ReplyTo: [email protected]
Subject: [mhvlug] Great meeting last night
Sent: Mar 3, 2011 07:00
For everyone that came out to the meeting last night, thanks, that was
awesome. We had 32 folks in the room, lots of great presentations, and
good cake.
If you took pictures, please send them to me, and I'll get them on the
website.
Here's to a great year 9 for the LUG.
-Sean
