Battery issues and the 4th & 5th R

In the last week Apple showed us how not to 'extend' battery life in a machine.  There will be a lot of experts and Apple fans who will debate both sides, but, here is my observations of the issue.

• Batteries in all devices degrade over time.  Give the users a tool to allow them to select the power options and explain in simple terms the implications of using them. I have an Android device and when I unplug the machine I turn on the power saving options so I can get a longer life out of the device until I plug back in.  I was informed of the power options for my phone and tablet and I was given a choice to make use of that option!
• Don't make system changes in the background hoping the users won't notice, they will!  Be up front and explain the issue as there are enthusiasts who will find out and let the whole world know.  If there is an issue that requires changing hardware settings let us know, communicate the issue and what the options are.
• Don't overcharge us for parts.  I understand and agree you need to make a profit, but, the prices at times seems to be set so it is cheaper to buy an new device.

Everyone knows what the three 'R's are.  Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  I believe there are two others.

• Repair.  Don't make it difficult to repair and only at the authorized dealers with over inflated prices.  Nothing is a bigger turn off in my not so humble opinion than being forced into this option.  Make it a bit easier to repair the devices and open up who can make repairs to those devices.  You can set up training and certification (at a reasonable price) for this and then let them compete based on price, service and quality.  As a side effect of making it easier to repair it also will make it easier to recycle the device as it can be more easily disassembled into parts for recycling.
• Replace.  Make it easy for us to replace the batteries and screens in our devices.  Replaceable batteries is one of the first things I check for when I buy a new device.  I do this not just for phones, I also do this for ALL devices (tablets & laptops especially) that have batteries.  I don't want to buy a device and when the battery is failing either go for an expensive repair or forced to buy a new device as we cannot get a battery.

Over the years I have done various upgrades and repairs to my laptops and cell phones.  It was a simple thing to pop out the old failed battery and then replace it.  For my netbook it gave me the option to do a major upgrade for the battery and I replaced it with a much bigger battery that allows me to work on the machine for most of the day unplugged. 

Had to nuke my Win 10 machine

This is why I don't like forced updates.  The latest version from MS caused my Win 10 box to go into a endless reboot.  I would turn it on, get to the logon screen and15 seconds or so the screen will go black, then blue, then reboots.  I went to the DELL tools when it started up and did a hardware check and it was all good.  Safe mode wouldn't tell me what the problem was, all it showed was 'hardware' failed according to the software.  Rather than working on what driver (if I could even find what was causing the issue) was at fault it was faster for me to restore the machine to its original state.  One of the normal tasks I had was backing up my data so that wasn't going to be a major issue for me (I thought).

I forced the system to go back to the original Win 8.1 installation and then went through the process of updating that.  I have made the decision that going Win 10 isn't happening on that machine.  It took me a few days to get things up-to-date and patched.  Removing McAfee was a bit of a pain as even when I said to remove it I was told I didn't have the authority (I was using the admin account).  McAfee did have a tool to do a complete removal and that worked.  So far the machine is running very well, no reboots!

The only issue I had was restoring my email (Thunderbird).  My latest backup of the mail folder didn't work, but, as I had multiple backups I could go back to an older backup.  All my other documents, videos and pictures restored without a problem.

Lesson learned is that I will now have checkpoints to restore back to in the case a future update messes up the system.  I turned it off thinking I wouldn't ever use it and I could use the disk space for other things.

Software and Tools - Backups

One of the most important things you can do after you secure your device is to make regular backups and just as important is to test your backups.

Why backup?

• Hard drives fail.  It doesn't matter how new the drive is or even if it is a SSD they will fail sooner or later;
• You lose your device or it is stolen;
• You drop your device and now it does not work;
• When you patch or update your operating system it fails.  It doesn't matter the O/S you are using, I have had failed Linux updates and it required me to rebuild the machine;
• You migrate to a new device and want all the files on the old machine moved to the new machine;
• You finger slips and you accidentally delete an important file/directory; 
• There is a disaster (ie. fire or flood);
• Your device(s) infected with a virus or a trojan.  Again, it doesn't matter the O/S you are using, there are nasty programs out there that works in Windows, Linux and OS/X.

If one or more of the above happens you will need a backup so that your important documents are available to you when you rebuild the device or copy to a new device.  I have had people come to me with dead and dying devices asking if I can pull off their data and they have not made any backups.  Too often I cannot recover all of their files and important documents, images, videos are lost and they don't have any backups.

Things to think about

How often do you backup? 

• That all depends on your personal preferences and how many documents you are adding to your device;
• If you don't create very many then it may be safe to backup infrequently (monthly); 
• If you create a lot of files (like scanning family photos), then frequent backups (daily) may be a good thing;
• Once you set a schedule stick to it.  I put up a recurring reminder in Google calendar to remind me of when backups should be run.  Also you can set up a recurring task in Windows and Linux (cron) to run your backup scripts on a set schedule.

How many copies do you want to keep?  

• Again this is a personal preference, but, multiple full backups is a good thing just in case one fails for some reason; 
• An option here is a monthly full backup and then weekly backups of new/changed (differential backups) files;
• Another reason as backups may fail and if you have only one copy then you have nothing to go back to.  I know this happens as decades ago when at work we were doing a DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) exercise at work and one of the corporate backup tapes failed.  It wasn't a major problem as we did keep multiple backups and restored from an older image;

Off-site location for your backups?  

• It doesn't matter if you have a good set of backups if you cannot get access to your site;
• How secure is the off-site.  If you have sensitive information you don't want anyone getting access to the backup;
• You should also figure out who should have access to your backups and let them know where it is and how they can get access to the backups if required;

Media for backups.  

• Decades ago floppies were the media, then CDs followed by USB drives;
• When you backup make sure that the tools, hardware and software is there to allow you to read the backups.  An example of this is some time ago I had to pull off backups from my father-in-law 3.5" floppy drives as he didn't have a floppy drive in his machine.  We were lucky in that I have an external 3.5" USB floppy drive for this and it was set up in Linux.  I also have an external CD drive and a blu-ray drive (call me paranoid) so I can pull files from backups in that format;
• To the cloud.  Don't depend on that as your main backup as it may not be there when you need it.  I like Google drive for a secondary backup myself and the bonus is that the files I put there are available anywhere I have a web browser (and the firewall allows access).  With the various sites getting hacked I also don't keep files there that are sensitive and when I do put up a file of that nature I use encryption on the file/directory.  I also have a small script using GRIVE in Linux to pull a backup from GOOGLE drive to my machine.

Software and file format for backups.  

• Over time operating systems do change and the software that did the original backup may not run on your new device and the new devices may not even be able to read your backups;
• I tend to work with the lowest common denominator for backups that does work across platforms.  I prefer to use "ZIP" files as I know Windows and Linux both can work with that file format.  I assume OS/X will be able to read them too, but, I don't use that operating system so I am not 100% sure;
• On my Linux machine I am partial to KBACKUP.  It is fairly easy to set up and use and it stores the files in a format that I can open in an Linux distro and Windows;
• On my Windows box I use a simple XCOPY routine.  It isn't pretty, but, it works and the files are in a format that my Linux machines can read;
• For my Android devices they get backed up to Google drive;
• Several times a year I take one of my backups and plug it into a different machine to see if it is readable and I can pull one or more files off the backup.  Make sure what is backed up can be restored!  It is also a quick and easy test to see if your restore steps work and if there is anything else you should be doing when restoring from a backup;

When you restore.

• If the restore is due to a virus or a trojan I strongly recommend that you don't ever use your backups until you have a clean and patched machine.  If the machine is still infected and the media you are using can be written to you don't want those backup files corrupted;
• Make a checklist of what you need to do the restore and the steps performed when doing a restore.  This includes steps on how to verify that the restore worked;

My KBACKUP routine

Here are screen shots of my starting KBACKUP, running the backup and when it finishes.

Shortcut in my toolbox

Loading my backup profile

Directory & file list for backup

Backup running

Backup done with filename

IoT now being used for DDOS

It was a matter of time before this happened.  With the various manufacturers of IoT devices worried more about being first, market share or making money (or all three) they have left device security as an afterthought.  Brian Krebs is one of the first that I know of where those not happy about what he does tried to silence him using a massive DDOS attack that appears to be using IoT devices.  In the past he has been a target for swatting.  At this time his site Krebs on Security isn't back up  at the time of this blog being written and that is a shame.  Ars Technica has a good article on this subject that you can read.  I agree with the article that this is troubling development.

The problem is that it is like the wild west with IoT devices.  If manufacturers don't do something about security and upgrades soon web providers and/or the government will do something about it and the potential will be stifled.

I see this as an opportunity for Anti-virus makers and software developers.  If they can develop a simple application to

1. Scan your network for IoT devices and present you with their findings;
2. Make it extensible to allow us to manually identify and flag IoT devices that were not detected and send feedback to the developer about the new devices;
3. Identify potential security holes and list options the user can make to secure their devices;
4. Automate the fixing of holes and changing settings to make the devices more secure.

Developers who can do the above will have an opportunity to make money while helping secure the newest set of toys on the internet.
In the long term manufacturers need to put security and the ability to upgrade at the top of the list and to firmly step on the neck of marketers and tell them NO, security comes first, not market share or money.  That is hard as they will tell everyone that a company is in the business of making money.  That is fair, but, they should be reminded that if people cannot trust their product that they will not be making any money!

I may be an exception to many people looking at IoT products for the home (or office) as I look at:

1. Can it be patched when security holes are identified and fixed?
2. Does it ask out of the box for the user to create an admin account and passwords and does not have default?
3. Good documentation on the production and configuration.  A simple user guide will suffice and then point the user to a web site with more detailed documentation;
4. Certificates can be added/changed/deleted so that one default certificate isn't used on every device made by that manufacturer?  I do this for my browsers and Linux boxes.  There are certain countries (like China and soon Russia) where I disable ALL their certificates as I don't trust them, may be wrong or paranoid, but, my machines my rules;
5. A tool to manage the IoT device and the ability to log all actions to a write only area by the IoT device.  The reasons for Write-Only is that if hackers do get in we want to make it a bit harder to alter the logs;
6. What is the support policy and expected life for support?
7. If it requires using the cloud to do its work
• Is the communication encrypted end-to-end?
• Can the end user create their own local server?  The reason is that the manufacturer will eventually stop supporting the product or go out of business.  When that happens we are left with a working product, but, non-functional.

At this time hackers can (and are) using the weaknesses in IoT devices to create massive bot nets and disrupt access for individuals and companies (like battlenet and Runescape) and shut down access until they cave to their demands or spend a massive amount of money to mitigate future DDOS attacks.  Hackers are not stupid and realize that this is a ripe area to exploit as there isn't much in the way to detect and stop them.  The individuals behind the DDOS are bullies and need to be recognized as such and treated as such.  Krebs and battlenet are the most recent victims, but, will not be the last.  The question is how many more times and how many people will be impacted before action is taken?

Update 2016/09/25:

Looks like Krebs site is back up.  Good to know that he is back and the DDOS bullies didn't win this time.

A new tool for my wife

Yesterday I picked up a new tool for my wife.  She does have a laptop and it is in our office.  The problem is that she has had a stroke a year ago and it is much too large and heavy for her to carry it downstairs and use it while sitting on her lap.  Factory Direct up the street had refurbished models of the Acer Chromebook for $129 (Canadian) that looked like it could do what she wanted and is light enough she can carry it around with one hand.  Her needs were simple, web browsing (news, weather and a few other sites), email and Facebook.  She has a tablet for her gaming and Facebook that she uses daily.

The Chromebook did it all right from the start without issues.  I made a minor tweak to turn off the touch-pad as I installed a wireless mouse.  It took only a minute to find how to do that on the web (I bookmarked that for future reference on the Chromebook).  The only minor quibble I have is that 16 gigs isn't enough (and I am not spending more money to install a new larger SSD).  It appears that the O/S takes up a fair bit of space and leaves 1 gig for the user.  I can live with that as she is using it only for light weight web work and does not need a huge amount of drive space.  I did format in Linux a SD card (16 gigs) and inserted it in the slot and pointed the downloads to that so we don't use valuable drive space for when she downloads files.  I don't see how to change the directory for the cache (yet) to point it there.  I did try to install our wireless printer, but, we have an older model and isn't supported by Cloud Print.

I did set up links at the bottom of the screen to email, browser, Facebook, Google drive so most of her normal tasks are one click away.  Next up is to see how the battery life is for her without it being plugged in.  If you are looking for a lightweight machine for simple tasks that don't depend on local storage the Chromebooks are an option to look at.

IoT - Do it better?

I am reading and hearing more and more about 'hacks' on IoT devices and other network connected devices (like cars).  Security must be the first thing a maker has in mind and not money or being able to brag that they are first to market.  The makers of IoT need to get together and define a number of things, if they don't do this then I will not be surprised when (not if) the government gets involved and imposes a solution.

Common API.

•  suspect a lot of functions could be described by a common, free to use API.  The GPL worked well for Linux and maybe it could be the model here too.
• Open it up so the end user can also tinker with the device.  Look at what has happened and is still happening to Linux over 25 years.
• With a common API you can present to the users a consistent front-end for setting values, reviewing settings over a number of products in your IoT product offerings.  When there is a new product it would simplify the development work on building a front end as code for common functions are already there.

Security.

• Too often there is a security hole and there is no way for the end-user to fix or for the manufacturer. Many times the users don't know there is a hole until news about the issue hits mainstream media, or, hobbyist friends send them a note.
• What would it cost to allow the user to get patches and updates?
• For certificates there MUST be a way to update the certificates when they are compromised.  Right now we either live with compromised devices or trash the devices.
• Default settings, allow the user to modify what goes out over the network.
• Makers claim their devices are secure, but, without being able to inspect how they implemented their security we don't know for sure.

Life of device.

• Define what the process is, what will be patched and for how long and when it will not be supported.  Dropping support and killing the servers that result in the device being a paper weight isn't acceptable.

Communication. 

• Be up-front on what is captured, why and the frequency it is sent.  Allow the end-user to select the level of information sent out and explain why it is needed and functionality lost by opting out.
• When the device gets hacked (not if) be up-front to the community on what happened, what was taken and the steps being taken to close the problem and fix so that it won't happen in the future.

Microsoft - Did you really test the latest release?

I have one and only one Windows based machine and everything else is Linux.  When Microsoft offered the update to Windows 10 I did the upgrade.  I wasn't worried as I could revert back to 8.1 and my work machine is Linux so if things gets messed up I still have a computer.  When I did the upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10 I lost the ability to use the scanner.  The scanner was only a couple of years old, but, the manufacturer didn't have a driver and the manufacturer isn't making a driver for that model in Win 10.  That wasn't a problem as my Linux machine could use the scanner so I didn't have to go out and buy a new supported scanner.

The big thing that pisses me off right now is the anniversary update to Windows 10.  I don't know what they tested, how they tested or even if they tested.  The machine right now is so unstable at times it is almost unusable.  Part of the time it will 'hang' and then I get a black screen or blue screen and have to do a hard reboot.  Most days I want to use the machine I end up rebooting 2 to 3 times before it runs.  This isn't an old machine, this is a fairly new and HIGH end Dell laptop that I use for one of the online games.  I also use it for storing all of my digital images and videos (1 Tb drive).  I also use it for photo editing and video editing and before the update it was rock solid and fast.  Now when it does work it takes minutes to boot, slow for the first several minutes and takes over 2 minutes to shut down.

I patched everything for drivers to the most current and it still locks up on a regular basis.  What I want to know is how does Microsoft test their software as I am not the only person having this problem and there isn't one common fix for everyone.  This suggests to me that there is something in a Microsoft software component that is causing the problem and we don't have the ability to be able to see what it is and disable that piece (if possible).

Upside right now is I have a backup of all of my images, videos and documents so that is safe.  Microsoft says they are looking into it and may have a fix, but, this is why I am using Linux.  When there is a major issue I can quickly roll back to the prior kernel or package and continue on with my work.

Some setting tweaks if your mouse appears to be dead

Starting with Windows 7 I noticed at times my mouse would stop working for a while.  I either had to unplug and plug the mouse back in, or, wait a few minutes for it to come back to life.  Windows 8 and it appears Windows 10 has the same issue.  It seems that by default Microsoft by default has 'Allow the computer to turn off this device' in power management turned on by default.


If you go to device manager, USB controllers and click on each hub.  If there is a power management setting click on that and turn off the check mark on the 'off'.

 

Blue tooth also has a similar setting and you may want to turn that off too.

So far it has been almost a day and the blue tooth mouse has been running without a problem.

My Windows 10 upgrade experience

Pre-Installation

It finally happened, Windows had a notice on my netbook that the Win10 upgrade was ready.  First thing I did was to make sure I had a backup of my data just in case.  I wanted to do my netbook first as it is an older, slower machine and if the upgrade worked well on that machine it should work well on my high end laptop.

The machine is an Acer Aspire One D255E.

• CPU - Intel Atom N455 - 1.66 GHz
• Memory - 2 Gigs (I upgraded from 1 Gig last month)
• Storage - 160 gigs

Installation

The process itself was very painless.  Be prepared to spend at least three hours for the upgrade.

Download, Configuration and Installation

Once you click the start it is almost hands off.  All you need is patience.  For the most part it does a good job of telling you what it is doing.  Towards the end it even informed me that it was taking a bit longer than normal which in itself is a nice touch from Microsoft.

The following screen captures is what you should see during the installation up to the point of your customizing the setup.

Custom Install process

Once you get through all of this you can start the final process.  I strongly suggest you pick the custom option.  This way you can turn off the sharing of information and ensure your default browser stays as the default.

Your old password is used

I am not sharing everything with MS

More things I turned off

Here is where you can modify default apps

I turned off a number of apps as I have my own

I like this, they know it is a bit slow & lets you know

When done it brings you to what you are familiar with

I tested out Old School Runescape

It actually seems to run better in Win10

There are other things I will be doing, but, there are online articles explaining this better that I can.  Do a search on 'How To Stop Windows 10 from using your PC bandwith' on how to turn off your sharing your bandwidth for downloading Win10 upgrade.

This blog was written on the Win10 netbook in Firefox and so far I have not encountered any problems.  Avast worked without issue, Irfanview worked without an issue and Runescape runs without a problem.

Update 2015/08/16

So far it has been running very well.  Did an update and it worked well and asked to reboot when finished.  Browser updated without issue and playing OSRS is nice and no lagg there.

Father-in-law computer. Next project isn't going to be easy

I was asked to back up all of the files my father-in-law has accumulated over the decades and put them on to USB memory sticks.  Think it is real easy right?  Not really.  Here is what I will be working with:

• Pentium class computer, old slow processor (well under 1 Ghz).
• Windows 95.
• No USB ports.
• No network card.
• Almost 100 3.5" floppy drives.
• A good number of ZIP disk drives.  He has a parallel port model.
• About 100 CDs and DVDs.

The last item was real easy, I popped that into my new laptop DVD drive, oh crap, it doesn't have a DVD.  Not a problem there as I am lucky to have an external CD/DVD drive that works in Windows 8.1.  I found a good number of CDs that I didn't create and quickly backed them up to a new folder on the machine.

The rest of it will take a bit of slogging.  He has not used the machine in over a year so I am really hoping it will boot up.  My father-in-law tended to store his documents, spreadsheets and pictures on external drives as he didn't want to fill up the hard drive.  Here is the order of what I will be doing:

• Copy all documents that are on the hard drive to a CD.
• Copy all docunments that are on the ZIP disks to a CD.  If the machine doesn't boot I am going to have to attach the ZIP drive to one of my older Linux laptops and pray.
• Buy an External USB 3.5" drive (Canada Computers has them, YAY!) 
• Check out a newer USB DVD drive as the current one is the size of several bricks and just as heavy (and slow).
• Read every floppy on my new Laptop using the external USB drive and backup to the new directory.
• Copy all documents from the CDs and then start making copies of the files for my sister-in-law.

After all of that is done I will also make a backup copy to my 1 TB external drive as multiple backups is a good idea.  Keep in mind that what technology you are using today may be obsolete in a few years and if your files are important then migrating them to a new medium is something you will need to do. Another thing to remember, if you buy a new laptop without a DVD drive you may want to invest in an external USB version.


Update 2015/07/02:

Finished the job.  Canada Computers did have that floppy drive and it worked very well.  I didn't have to install any software as Windows detected the drive.  It took almost two days, but, 81 folders, 3,722 files and a total size of 1.2 Gigs all the data was transferred.  This also includes my converting various graphic files to JPG format. All of the files were backed up to a USB flash drive.

The ZIP disks were transferred, but, the machine he had failed to boot.  It looks like the hard drive failed there.  That wasn't a major problem as I had an old Windows 98 machine with a parallel port and the ZIP drive ran from there.  The only 'fun' was installing the driver as the install floppy had errors. I will have to pull apart the machine and see if I can use the USB adapter for IDE drives and see if there is anything there I can salvage.

Sister-in-law is happy as a lot of images and documents created over the decades have been saved and available to all of the family.


Next mini-project 

Now to start scanning the various photo albums that we picked up.  I know a number of them I did scan many years ago and I will have to see what pictures I didn't scan and digitize them.  I reorganized my office layout so that the scanner is just a short reach away and I moved the printer to where the scanner was.  This isn't a major change, but, having the scanner a few inches away rather than several feet will make this an easier project.  The old layout worked as I didn't scan very often.

Another machine migrated to Linux

Last year someone threw out an old Toshiba Techra laptop that was still in working order.  It was a very old machine as it had a 37 Gb hard drive 256 megs of memory, one USB port and no wireless networking.  I checked out the machine and could not see any personal information on it.  If there was anything there I would have wiped the files.  For a while I used that laptop as an emergency machine, or, if one of Emily's friends visiting needed a machine it was there for them.  This machine was running XP and it ran very slowly, but, it ran.  Since XP is not being supported I wanted something running on the machine that is a bit more secure, but, light on what it needed for hardware.  I found a lot of candidates when I searched DistroWatch and did a search.  I found one called Netbook that appeared to fit the bill and I downloaded a copy and burned it to a CD.  I had to burn a CD as the Toshiba machine would not boot from the USB stick.

I rebooted the laptop with Netbook and it didn't take very long to launch and bring up a working system.  I clicked on the network and it auto detected the USB network card and it was working!  It was moderately responsive running from the CD and I figured it was safe to install.  I followed the steps and I thought I had a working system.  I did a restart, but, the machine wouldn't boot.  I went back and read that I had to set GRUB and once I followed the menu options from the Netbook CD I had a working machine.  The next reboot worked and I was up and running.  The basic system is working and we now have a spare machine that can connect to our network.  Firefox runs well and takes maybe 5 seconds to launch on the machine.  I will be dropping off the machine in our daughters office that we set up in the basement for her and she has a nice low end machine for her friends to use when they visit and don't have a laptop.

If you have an old low-end machine that still works I would recommend checking out what DistroWatch has available for Linux distributions and try them out on CD/USB on the machine.  You can then get a bit more life out of the machine and have a secure system running.  The only downside is that Java isn't installed by default and I haven't tried to do an install for Java, but, there is only one site (Runescape) that I was interested in testing it on and I know the system wouldn't be able to run it at an acceptable frame rate.

Fun replacing BIOS battery

A few weeks ago I had a machine dropped for a new battery and to be reimaged.  The battery was easy to replace, but, on restart it wouldn't boot.  I took the battery out hoping that would do it, but, it still wouldn't boot.  Looks like I will have to find the manual to see how I can force a BIOS reset and then do the reimage.

My new toy.

After over twelve years my Palm m130 decided to go to that digital graveyard in the sky.  The battery wouldn't hold a charge, the power button didn't work and the only way I could turn it on was to use a pin in the reset button.  I decided to go with the Google Nexus 7 since my wife bought herself one just before Christmas and she just loves the machine.

I picked up the 16 gig version and I couldn't be happier.  Most of the software I use is free and almost replaces the Palm m130 completely in functionality.  The only thing I cannot find that is free (so far) is a contact manager.  I want one that is very similar to what the palm has in that it records names, addresses emails and birthday/anniversary information in one spot.

The device itself runs a version of Linux and from what I see using it... It is great!  I am now using it as my main machine to pick up Google mail, Facebook and Twitter.  The thing just works and I have not had any issues with it locking up unlike a certain operating system I will leave unnamed.  I also installed Avast as it is only a matter of time before the 'nasties' start making the presence known.  I am using Avast as I have switched us all from AVG at home.  I liked AVG until they made a major mess on this netbook and my main laptop that required me to completely rebuild both machines.

On another note PCLINUX finally put out a 64 bit version of their distribution and I am playing with it now.  I wanted the 64 bit as it would recognize all of the memory in my main laptop unlike their 32 bit offering.  Now all I have to do is figure out how to set up dual boot and use Windows 7 only for a few games and Linux for everything else.  If anyone who has done this for windows 7 please leave me a note on where I can find a 'how-to-do' for this.

More converts to Linux

At work we had an auction on a number of older laptops that were replaced by newer machines.  I got lucky and was able to buy a Dell D820 for my wife.  Our tech support people did a great job testing the machines before we got them to ensure they worked and reinstalled Windows XP.  I re-imaged the machine to PCLinux as a dual boot machine.  It didn't take very long and it was running and my wife is very happy that she can now work anywhere in the house using the wireless connection.  I left it as dual boot as she does use Microsoft Publisher now-and-then and this will allow her the option to use the program.  My wife just loves the machine and it appears that her 'old' desktop may be repurposed in the near future as a server for our household.  I figure that we can put the printers on that machine and then share it so it won't matter where we are in the house we can print to the laser or inkjet on demand.

My daughter got a new laptop at Christmas and I was storing her old Compaq desktop.  I re-imaged that machine also to Linux and it will be going to my middle son and his family.  It will be great for them as it is more responsive than Windows XP and more secure out-of-the-box.  I also loaded a number of educational games for my grandson.  Upside is that this saves them money buying a new machine and an older machine gets an extended life in a new home.  Libre Office was installed so they can read and update any of the documents they have on their laptop.

PCLINUXOS 2011

They finally released the new version of PCLinuxOS.  I downloaded the latest version and put in on the memory stick as a live USB.  When it launched it didn't like my video card, but, I was able to get it to run using VESA.  This isn't a surprise as a number of distros for some reason won't boot with the card in my HP laptop (Pavilion dv6).  It launched cleanly and the desktop itself is nice and for me well organized.  The only program I had a problem was the software update.  It seems to have crashed to the launch in and then looped showing a message so fast I couldn't read it and the logon prompt.  I may try it on other machines to see if this is a problem with the distro or my laptop.

On another note my daughter created a profile picture for me so I now have that for my overall picture rather than the old shot of me having a beer in the pool a few years ago.

Update:

I tried it on my Acer Netbook and everything I tried worked.  Firefox, not a problem.  Software updates worked without a hiccup.  The only thing is that it is a netbook so it was running a bit slow.  At least I now know that it is the HP laptop that had a problem and not the distro itself.  It would appear that I may have to try again and then see what causes the problems and if there are workarounds.  I would like to make every machine in our house use one distro.

Looking to dual boot the laptop

I am still checking out the various Linux distributions for making my laptop into a dual boot machine.  I am running Windows 7 (64 bit) and I am wanting a Linux distro that is also 64 bit so it will take advantage of all of my memory.  I had PCLinux on the machine before, but, it is a 32 bit version and was limited to 2 gigs of memory (I have 4).  I want dual boot as I still have software (taxes) that is Windows only.

I have tried a lot of distros and a few of them either won't boot (kernel panic or graphic lookup) and they are automatically out of the running.  I want something that works right out of the box without me having to manually edit config files.  Part of the distros also now support my wireless network card and that is a huge bonus.  The only thing I cannot see on the 'install' options are how do you set up the partition so that the current windows is still there, but, I can carve a portion out for Linux.  If anyone has a good and simple instruction for this it would be appreciated.  I really want Linux back on my machine so I can get back to using my machine rather than borrow my wife's machine for mail and photo editing.  Once that get stable I will then convert my daughter's machine to dual boot so that we all have Linux up and running.

PCLINUX OS 2010 - Beta 1

The new beta for PCLINUX OS 2010 is now out.  I downloaded the ISO image and burned a DVD (next time I will burn a CD so that all the machines at home can use it).  The prior versions had a problem with my Dell Inspiron 530 desktop, but, this time the machine booted up without a problem.  I am running off the live CD and it seems to be rock solid at this time even though it is a beta version. 

I launched Firefox and went over to Runescape to see how it works.  The Java runtime was not installed by default, but, after adding it via Synaptic the site loaded and I could run the game without a problem.  I have not really tried the HD mode as I don't know if the video card driver from ATI is loaded.  Using safe mode runs and I don't have any lagg issues. 

I will be trying this out for the week and if I don't encounter any problems I will be backing up the three desktops and install this.  I prefer using this distro as it is fairly solid and it is easier to support the machines with one distro rather than with the two I am running now (Mandriva is on the Dell as that works).

I launced the scanner software (XSANE) without any problems and it auto-detected the scanner.  I didn't load DIGIKAM, but, it is on the list of programs that can be installed.  Like all other distros it has a problem with my TV card, but, that is not a major issue for me as I very rarely watch TV while on the machine.

Updating my machine

For the last couple of months I have been looking at the various distros that are out there and how they work on my machine here.  The one I really wanted updated was PCLINUXOS so that all of the machines at home run with the same distro.  The 2009.2 version still won't boot on my machine so I had to look elsewhere.  My current distro was Mint 5.

Mandriva just came out with their latest and I downloaded and burned the ISO and gave it a shot.  It looks very nice visually and it detected most of my hardware without a problem.  The only two things were my palm pilot and the TV card which it didn't detect (like every other distro so far).  I then downloaded Mint 7 KDE and gave it a shot.  It was as visually appealing to me as Mandriva and had the same issues with the palm pilot and TV card.  The area it was ahead was that Java was installed automatically (I have to install that on Mandriva) and the ATI card driver was there for me.  I opted to keep with Mint so far and I upgraded to version 7.

One of the bonuses of this is now I have two more CDs that I can then pass out to friends and family when they have more problems with windows. 

It will take a bit of time to get used to KDE 4, but, so far it has not caused me any problems.  Firefox with Java still plays Runescape in HD mode without a problem.  Digikam works fine along with Thunderbird and XSANE.

When I get some time I will try to dig and see if I can get the palm pilot to work.  I thought I saw something about 'VISOR'.  If that doesn't work I really want to get my TV card to work.  I have a lot of home videos I would like to hook up to the input and make into MPG files and have them transferred to DVD for the family.

Update 2009/11/08:

I have moved off of Mint over to Mandriva.  I have been using Mint for a day and I have noticed a few things that make it a bit less usable for me.

1. Runescape log in flickers wildy and it cannot be stopped unless I take HD mode off.
2. The shutdown function at times (about 50%) does not work and the system locks.
3. I cannot access system services to manually define what I want to run.  This is a critical one for me as I want complete control over what is running.  Mandriva allows me to do this.

The first two items may be something that I did when I configured the system, but, so far Mandriva is not doing those things and I will use that for now.

In Mandriva it didn't auto-detect my printer (SAMSUNG ML-2010), but, after going to WWW.SAMSUNG.COM I found the driver, downloaded it and installed.  It wasn't as smooth as Mint, but, it worked and I now have a printer.

Linux and Runescape HD - Update

When I wrote about using HD in Runscape I didn't give you all of the software and hardware being used.

I am Running Linux Mint - Elyssa KDE Community Edition. I let the system figure out what ATI driver to install and configure. Firefox 3.0.13 and java 6 Update 14 (1.6.0_14_b08). The hardware is a Dell inspiron 530 with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT card. The monitor is an Acer AL1717. I applied all of the patches to keep the system up-to-date. So far I have not had any problems with running Runescape in HD mode and I can swap between my desktops and resize the Runescape session without causing any problems or crashes.

The only thing we cannot do now is play various games that are Windows specific and I hope it is only a matter of time before the gaming companies figure out that Linux is a more-than-viable environment for their games. I prefer running Linux as we don't have to worry about trojans and viruses like when we are using windows. Even if there is an exploit the community comes up with fixes/patches much faster than proprietary operating systems.

Linux and Runescape HD mode

I did a minor update this week for Java and the ATI driver to see if the HD mode in Linux works yet. To my surprise it did and it was very stable. I have been running this for the week and I have not had any problems yet. One more item that I can remove from the list that didn't work well (if at all). The only things now are my palm pilot and TV tuner to get working and everything that works in Vista will work in Linux. The other major item is income tax software that will run on Linux. Once I get all three items to work I can then think about removing Vista from my machine.

On a similar note I downloaded LinuxMint 7 KDE RC1 and I will be burning a CD and testing that out to see how it works. I also downloaded and burned PCLinuxOS 2009.2 and burned it on to a CD. I tested it out on my wife's machine and it looks good and solid. After backing up her machine I will be upgrading her and my daughter's machines. The distro still does not boot on my machine and I will need to take an inventory of the hardware and check out PCLinuxOS knowledge base to see why. I would prefer that all of our machines use one distro just to make it easier for me to support and keep up-to-date.