safety and speed of operating systems nick?

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Paul Barker
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#31

Post by Paul Barker »

Great it's now showing something on the screen (file browser) and is 29% through copying files. I've still got everything crossed.
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Paul Barker
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#32

Post by Paul Barker »

up and running

gotto go do emergency plumbing bummer.
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#33

Post by Paul Barker »

plumbing sorted now having downloaded avg.exe ubantu doesn't seem to run it.

what free anti virus anti spam and firewall are recomended if any?
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Nick
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#34

Post by Nick »

You should have a firewall, and why would you want any anti virus software?

(he asks knowing that whilst there are a couple of companies that produce Linux anti virus software, no one I know has been so silly as to use them).

But he other side, is what ports have you go open that a firewall would need to protect. It may have allowed ssh (secure shell), but telnet isn't on as standard, neither is ftp. And unless you configure it, I dont think its running a web server as standard.

If you remember my rant about why Windows was insecure, you now have something that basically isn't, so you don't need to worry as much.

the firewalls job is to make sure that you are not visable on the internet, mot than in the case of windows its to protect you from the internet.

Assuming you have created a root user with a pasword, and a seperate paul user with your password, and run as paul to do most things. It should ask you for the root password if needed to do config.

Also worth remembering that whilst you can run many windows apps under wine, you can't just install them and expect they will work like on windows, but thats partly why you don't need the anti-virus software.

Anti spam is more a case of how you intend to manage you email, I don;t know what mail accounts you use, but in most cases the spam is filtered at that end.

there are several mail spam filtering packages you can use, but most are for when you run your owm mail server.
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#35

Post by Darren »

Well I've now got my old poxy laptop on the net but my main one is still down.
I painfully backd up the files but lost a load, formatted it reloaded it and still it says

GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 21

Was it worth it....???
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#36

Post by Darren »

Finally I've managed too fix th mbr through the windows repair console.

Far from recovered but at least I've got windows back now.
Next to get the old ghost magic to do it's tricks.

But i'm no nearer to linux, infact unless someone can tell me how to do this I think I'd better forget it. this was a nightmare. 8 hrs later and I'm far from back to where I started !!!
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#37

Post by Darren »

OK, I've recovered, back on the main laptop and after using the old one it's good to be back !!

Lost a few files, wasted nearly 9hrs on this, but at least I'm backed up now which I should have done before i started. Would have been a lot easier !!!

Now what? I'm where I started minus a few files !!!
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#38

Post by Paul Barker »

Thancks Nick

I just am paul with a password, so
i will set up a new user without privilages.

With the obvious proviso that I'm having to learn new OS impressions so far:

Less time lag delays than windows. That is with windows you give it a command and wander what the fick was so hard about it, (reason of course is that it is running loads of stuff in background that it considers more worthy than your request. Actually haven't found ubuntu ignoring my requests at all, does what I ask when I ask it. This is quite novel, I could get used to it.

After it finally successfully loaded there was no fuss recognising the internet connection (which is via my non password wifi network). It seems strange not to have frequent pop ups telling me my connection might not be a good one, or asking me to manually configure it. Ubuntu just seems to go about connecting in qa flash and says nothing or demands nothing. This is also a breath of fresh air.

No huge time lag at start up while all the add on protection measures of windows necessity load themselves to occupy memory and slow down chosen programs,

I probably won't need the 1 smeg ram I ordered to speed up this 256k puter any longer.

I might actually change over the ibm thinkpad (which is helllish fast compared to the haditvent already. Oly proviso is I just don't know what I'm going to do with all this trouble free puting time and speed. Everything gets done so much quicker you have nothing to do?

Chuffed. Thanks Nick.
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#39

Post by Nick »

Paul with a password is ok, just dont normally run as root.
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#40

Post by Cressy Snr »

Here is Ubuntu running on my MacBook pro.
It is a nice OS and very secure.
As Nick says there is no need for antivirus software. The system gets out of the way and allows the operator to simply get on with what they want to do.

Image

One small problem as you have found Darren is that is can be an absoulute pig to install, which is one reason it has not become more popular as a domestic desktop environment.

One really neat feature that Apple has appropriated from UNIX/Linux and called it "Bonjour" is ZeroConf networking. It will find and connect to printers, servers and other computers on the network with no messing about with IP addresses.

Linux can be a bit geeky but it is well worth persevering with. Once you get it working it just keeps going with very little need to even shut down the machine.
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#41

Post by Nick »

Linux can be a bit geeky but it is well worth persevering with. Once you get it working it just keeps going with very little need to even shut down the machine.
I have to come back to that a bit. Having set up multiple boots on a mac thats not that much fun either, and Darren has tried to use a USB disk as a boot device, so not the most simple of tasks with any OS AFAIK.

As for the need to shut down, there shouldn't ever be a need to shutdown, unless you are installing a new kernel. Uptimes in years are common on *nix boxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
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#42

Post by Darren »

Nicks right of course, my only real complaint is that ubunti suggested it was ok to load to a USB drive when infact it wasn't.

I suppose I need to put it on a separate computer or as a duel boot.
Unfortunately I can't let go of windows due to needing Photoshop and Autocad. Prob some others as well but not discovered that as yet.

I'm not entirely convinced it's the way to go due to the above. Shame, it looked like it was doing well.

Maybe I should use a machine for the net with Ubunti and another machine with windows for the other stuff.
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#43

Post by Nick »

One choice would be to partition the windows machine to boot both from its disk, but I guess you don't have the free space.

The bit that I think went wrong with your install is that ubuntu replaced the windows boot loader with its own (GRUB) and it was unable to boot the USB driver, and had loat your windows boot.

I am sure it can be done, but in your case it may not be worth it. The other ooption is geen a cheap desktop to give linux a try so you can see if its worth it for you.

AutoCad can be run under wine.

http://architectafrica.com/bin0/news200411111_wine.html

And so can PhotoShop

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7770280571.html

However, its not worth changing for the sake of it. Paul had a problem that Linux would possibly solve, and a set of requirements that were met by ubuntu. You may not have that much of a problem that needs a change at the moment.
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#44

Post by Cressy Snr »

Nick wrote:
Linux can be a bit geeky but it is well worth persevering with. Once you get it working it just keeps going with very little need to even shut down the machine.
I have to come back to that a bit. Having set up multiple boots on a mac thats not that much fun either, and Darren has tried to use a USB disk as a boot device, so not the most simple of tasks with any OS AFAIK.

As for the need to shut down, there shouldn't ever be a need to shutdown, unless you are installing a new kernel. Uptimes in years are common on *nix boxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
Hi Nick
I think you might have misunderstood my post.
I wasn't trying to come the usual Mac fanboy garbage.

When I said it was a nice OS , the "it" I was talking about was the Ubuntu install not Mac OSX. Same with the system getting out of the way; that was referring to the Linux install too.

TBH it was a pig to set up on the Mac. This was doubly complicated by the fact that I did not want to have to have a triple boot system.

In the picture, Linux is running under Parallels desktop, a Mac VM tool that enables (in my case) Linux, Windows 2000, and Mac OSX to run at the same time providing you have enough RAM.

I use these three systems so that wherever my supply teaching job takes me I can usually access school computer systems using my own machine rather than take up one of their computers (with the permission of the Admin of course) 8)

As for Steve's Reality Distortion Field... well I think the iPhone is the greatest thing ever to have been invented by man. I would willingly crawl through broken glass and burning coals to get my hands on one of those babies. You can be sure I'll be waiting in line with my fellow disciples outside the Apple Store Meadowhall three weeks before it is released to make sure of bagging one of these fab devices.............er oops sorry.........I'll get me coat :shock:

Steve
Last edited by Cressy Snr on Tue Jul 10, 2007 11:34 am, edited 5 times in total.
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#45

Post by Darren »

Yes it was all to do with the MBR Nick, apart from that all looks as if it was fine.

I felt I needed to back up my files before going further just incase. This involved dismantling the laptop and using another hard drive after installing windows. That's why it took me so long.

The reality was I needn't have bothered. I keep almost all my files on a separate partition on the main/only HD and that stayed intact. Better to be safe though.

The ones I lost were just a few on C:

I really need one of those large 200Gb or more USB drives for backing up. Unless you have a better idea.

Perhaps I should dump all my files on your server!!!....Kidding of course..:-)


I'll be honest, I have no real need for Linux, I have very few problems with Windows. But I did like the idea and it looks good when playing with it on the Live CD. It's certainly fast with large jpgs and I use a lot of those. Correction it's very fast..!!

Wine...umm..tempting. But the whole shebang would be time consuming and fiddly to set up wouldn't it?

I could give it a partition, I have an 80Gb drive???

Can you suggest a way to do it. Bloody heck, I should be working, but I do like a challenge !!!!
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