Just fired Bill Gates

[Gremlin]

IMHO if schools dumped Microsoft, and started teaching kids LINUX, not only would the education system save $$$$ in fees, our kids would actually start to learn about computers, not microsoft products.

Not all schools are using Microsoft, some I know are using Apple Macs.

And yeah, I also wouldn't be trusting that hard drive again, normally, once it has failed once (which it sounds like it did) the odds of it failing again are high...

[Lias]

Point taken (it was also made by both sons) but at the moment, all checks out OK. Cashflow being what it is at the moment (Translation - spending our spare cash on new front pads for the GPZ, getting the wifes GN up and running plus 2 new tyres on the cage) while its working, it can stay.

http://www.hdsentinel.com/ can tell you if the drive is starting to die, it monitors the drives internal diagnostics etc, is bloody good. Has helped me spot several drives starting to fail.

For geeks: Relatime SMART montioring, temperature monitoring, and the registered version has cool features like panic backup and PC shutdown on a drop in drive health, etc. Bloody useful wee tool.

[jubilant]

Its rather ironic that we complain about Microsoft when that is the young upstart which brought computing to the masses.

Computers are tools. Like toasters. Teachers, parents, and school kids expect them to work. They don't care if there is a wavy window, a penguin, or a bit of fruit on bootup. Windows is familiar to 99.999% of all casual computer users. Even Apple recognise that. Why would any school try to change to the unknown?

guys the real start up was sir clive sinclair with the zx spectrum range, the first home pc!! but microsoft has made things popular and now linux ( ubuntu ) has made radical improvements, i myself have been a linux fan for ages now, the software is more stable...faster...and for me just right for the jobs i need to do....oh and free.!

props to the guys from ubuntu

[mashman]

What make/model is your hard drive? Over the last 2 years Seagate and Western Digital and a few other providers have had a bit of a torrid time with the chipset/firmware of the drives. I'd get the model of the drive and do a search online. The upside is, if you have one of these "dodgy" chipset/firmware problems, they company's involved do offer a free data recovery service as well as a replacement drive...

[taff1954]

http://www.hdsentinel.com/ can tell you if the drive is starting to die, it monitors the drives internal diagnostics etc, is bloody good. Has helped me spot several drives starting to fail.

What a handy wee application!! This is the outcome.....
HDD Device 0: /dev/sda
HDD Model ID : SAMSUNG HD040GJ/P
HDD Serial No: S0DDJ1LL621495
HDD Revision : ZG100-43
HDD Size : 41298 MB
Interface : S-ATA
Temperature : 34 °C
Health : 100 %
Performance : 100 %
Power on time: 538 days, 7 hours
Est. lifetime: more than 1000 days

Seems OK to me at this point in time. Since my PC is only one of 4 computers here, I think things can stay as they are for now. Always wanted to try to put linux to greater use anyway.

[flyingbrick]

alright.. I'm having a play with linux today :-)

Got my old 1200mhz X30 IBM thinkpad running DSL (dam small linix ) and its running sweeeeeeeeeeeet.

The entire OS is just 50mb (believe it or not) and its not all *that*ugly especially after downloading a backgaround photo and changing a few colours. Pretty user friendly too as its my first successfull play with Linux

right now i can look aver and see that CPU usage is at 7% and RAM use is at 76mb....SOOOooo sweeet.

AND.. its booted and running off a 4GB flash drive right now so hasnt had to access the hard drive ONCE!.

XP was constantly running out of ram and pillaging the hard drive for storage (i bought some more ram today.. $40 off trademe. wooo!) but with this linux here theres no such trouble.

I'm gonna see how much i like it before making it more permanent. but at this stage i'm quite stunned at how well its working.

AND. I can plug this stick into basically any PC that will allow booting from a USB and i can continue with what i was doing with all my own settings and eveeeerything. ITS SO AWESOME.


-runs off laughing hysterically.

[vindy500]

try puppy linux as a different flavour of the same thing

[flyingbrick]

Yeah its downloading now. Looks a whole lot more refined. DSL is very oldschool in its operation.

I'm back to windows now. It actually seems to be behaving itself for once.... Almost like I've just scared it into operation LOL.

[Gremlin]

pffft, who wants such low ram usage?

My machine is currently tootling along using around 2 - 2.5GB... oh, thats right, its running at 100% CPU load, and its Core i7

[flyingbrick]

Fark.

Puppy is nice. Highly reccomend for anyone wanting to get into linux with minimal knowledge.

My laptop now gives me the choice windows or linux when i start it up :-) and its fast as crapola in linux.

and its puuurdy.. and everything seems to work just like it should :-D

http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/lin...00-linnwin.htm

This link is gold.
shows how to install puppy on your HD and setup the dual boot system.