Re: [ubuntu-uk] Two operating systems
Keith Powell wrote: For some time now, I have had two hard drives, each in its own plug-in mobile hard drive caddy. One has XP on it (which I still need :-( and the other has Ubuntu on it. So I have just plugged in whichever OS I wanted. I'm thinking of doing away with the hard drive caddies and installing both drives inside the computer. For ease, XP would remain on its existing drive and be plugged into the 'master' plug on the ribbon cable. The Ubuntu drive would be plugged into the 'slave' plug on the IDE ribbon cable. Ubuntu would probably be a reinstall on a new, larger hard drive, but I've not decided yet. I see that, if I press F8 during the BIOS boot, I can select what I boot from (different DVD drives or different hard drives). Selecting the appropriate hard drive from F8, I think, would be better than messing about setting GRUB up for dual booting. (Something which I don't know how to do at the moment!) It would mean that I don't have to do anything to the XP drive. Is what I want to do, using F8 feasible, or would I be better setting GRUB up? Thank you all for your prompt replies and the help. I was rather scared of doing anything which may adversely affect the XP drive, such as installing GRUB on it, as I didn't want to go to the palava of having to reinstall Windows. Now, having read your replies, I'm confident of having the two drives internally and selecting them with GRUB. I'll do it over the week-end. Thanks again. Cheers Keith -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Two operating systems
alan c wrote: However, if you use a second hd for ubuntu, there is very little touched on the first drive at all. So (almost) no risk to data. Indeed... and if you're planning to throw the old Ubuntu disc away and get a new larger one you might even consider backing up the whole Windows drive onto that old drive, just to calm your fears in my experience it has never been necessary to restore from such backups, but to have a complete backup of Windows can never hurt - it being such a tempestuous Operating System and all ;-) Sean -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Happy Sysadmin Day 2007
Happy Sysadmin day folks! http://www.sysadminday.com/ http://www.sysadminoftheyear.com/ Chris -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Two operating systems
Keith Powell wrote: Keith Powell wrote: For some time now, I have had two hard drives, each in its own plug-in mobile hard drive caddy. One has XP on it (which I still need :-( and the other has Ubuntu on it. So I have just plugged in whichever OS I wanted. I'm thinking of doing away with the hard drive caddies and installing both drives inside the computer. For ease, XP would remain on its existing drive and be plugged into the 'master' plug on the ribbon cable. The Ubuntu drive would be plugged into the 'slave' plug on the IDE ribbon cable. Ubuntu would probably be a reinstall on a new, larger hard drive, but I've not decided yet. I see that, if I press F8 during the BIOS boot, I can select what I boot from (different DVD drives or different hard drives). Selecting the appropriate hard drive from F8, I think, would be better than messing about setting GRUB up for dual booting. (Something which I don't know how to do at the moment!) It would mean that I don't have to do anything to the XP drive. Is what I want to do, using F8 feasible, or would I be better setting GRUB up? Thank you all for your prompt replies and the help. I was rather scared of doing anything which may adversely affect the XP drive, such as installing GRUB on it, as I didn't want to go to the palava of having to reinstall Windows. Now, having read your replies, I'm confident of having the two drives internally and selecting them with GRUB. I'll do it over the week-end. The biggest risk if there is one, with a dual boot install is the possible resize of the ntfs partiton I would guess, so I always suggest scandisk well and defrag at least once if not more, to ensure tidiest hard drive, Also obviously to have a backup in case of unforseen disaster. However, if you use a second hd for ubuntu, there is very little touched on the first drive at all. So (almost) no risk to data. If you do go for a ubuntu reinstall, an easy way would be to leave a large unpartitioned space on the drive (maybe the whole drive, partitions previously deleted), if you want a semi automagical install, anyway. hth -- alan cocks Kubuntu user#10391 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Two operating systems
alan c wrote: Keith Powell wrote: I was rather scared of doing anything which may adversely affect the XP drive, such as installing GRUB on it, as I didn't want to go to the palava of having to reinstall Windows. Now, having read your replies, I'm confident of having the two drives internally and selecting them with GRUB. I'll do it over the week-end. The biggest risk if there is one, with a dual boot install is the possible resize of the ntfs partiton I would guess, so I always suggest scandisk well and defrag at least once if not more, to ensure tidiest hard drive, Also obviously to have a backup in case of unforseen disaster. However, if you use a second hd for ubuntu, there is very little touched on the first drive at all. So (almost) no risk to data. If you do go for a ubuntu reinstall, an easy way would be to leave a large unpartitioned space on the drive (maybe the whole drive, partitions previously deleted), if you want a semi automagical install, anyway. Thanks for the additional information, Alan. Much appreciated! Cheers Keith -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Remote Repos
I've been trying to put some flesh around Alan's idea, not that easy with three daughters constantly after your attention but here goes anyway. The web side of the house is fairly run of the mill stuff, so that's been pushed to one side. Only thought is to keep any interfaces clean and simple. Next, why would anyone want it? I think the main areas would be: * Unable to get access regularly to a high speed Internet connection * unable to get access outside of an Intranet * no Internet connection at all Additionally, there is also the small business, or school, that don't want their bandwidth gobbled up by machines on the network each individually updating themselves. I understand that in an ideal world the network would be configured so that the updates are downloaded once and broadcasted to each machine on the network as it connects, but this only really happens in medium to large organisations, and those smaller ones that have SysAdmins who can think outside the box (in my experience that is). As for the HDDs themselves, 40 or maybe 50 Gb, and ideally a compact design with a chip set that we know functions well with Ubuntu / Linux. From this you'll realise I'm looking at each HDD having one architect for one release cycle on it. My only question is whether a USB v2.0 or v1.1 or mixture; probably v2 only for availability reasons and data transfer speeds. Next is the physical side of things. As Alan says you need a central server with about 400 - 500 Gb on it with the ability to handle updating at least 2 HDDs at a time. I don't think more is needed as the uptake in the UK would be fairly minimal but at least the service is there. The ideal locations would be in developing countries. So the question here is whether to look at sending items from the UK, getting local offices set up through the local or nearby Loco teams, or just limit ourselves to the UK and Eire. Next is the physical location of the business. Well that actually doesn't matter that much; in fact it could be quite easily run out of the proverbial spare bedroom. This of course also leads onto the question of how you actually ship them out to the client and get them back again. I realise that the HDDs are designed to be portable but you still would probably need to have some specialised packing to protect them whilst in transit that could be reused to send it back to the spare bedroom. Lastly, is how do we let people know that the service exists? Ideally, it'd be from the official Ubuntu sites, and also from those sites linked to Ubuntu and Linux. So that's my thoughts on the actual project, but what about the competition? As Alan said there are people already out there who are doing this using optical media. This is fine and a relatively cheap approach, as it only costs the price of a couple of DVDs and the P P; no worries about returns or missing / broken HDDs. However, extrapolating the new legislation surrounding recycling electrical items, I wonder how long it will be before one off hit DVD / CDs will have to be green as well. Other questions which spring to mind are: * client gets their HDD, how do they pursuade apte-get or whichever to use that repo? * finances * licencing * sole tradeing or LLP for the business * binaries / source code or both * full time operation or hobby status? I think that this kind of goes hand in glove with the Marketing threads. What we really need is some well known brand to go Ubuntu and jump on the back of that publicity. Or indeed, decide as a community what area we're going to tackle first and get cracking there instead of aiming at the elusive general public. E -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Alan Pope Sent: 26 July 2007 14:36 To: British Ubuntu Talk Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 27, Issue 47 On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 12:16:37PM +0100, Pete Stean wrote: Hmm, that hard disc idea sounds good in principal, but then you've got someone who is in the position of suddenly having to worry about DOA products etc etc - a complete headache waiting to happen :\ Not that I'm nay-saying or anything, but in reality it sounds a bit like hard work to me Indeed it does :) There are already people who sell a copies of the repo on DVD/CD, but I don't know how popular those products are. Hard disks would be potentially harder work in some ways, but easier in others. It's very easy to have a cron job that regularly runs apt-mirror to keep the master copy up to date, and just rsync the master over to a new disk as/when it is needed to replenish stock or update it prior to sale. Dealing with multiple optical media for each customer also has ups and downs. If you were to take a copy of the binary packages only then it would fit on 3 dual layer DVDs, or 5 single layer ones. If you went for the whole repo (for one release) - including source packages as well as binary, then it would fit on 5 dual layer DVDs, or 9
