Rob wrote:
That's really interesting. I didn't know you could mix OSes that were built for completely different architectures (PowerPC & Intel) like that. I learn something new every day.
Yup. You have to emulate the processors, tho, so it can be slower. Since modern processors are so fast, though, depending on how old of an architecture you are emulating, you might not realize it.
I've had fun running emulators for the old Atari home computers (like the 800) which were a Motorola 6502 architecture. Primitive and slow by today's standards (A blistering 1.79 Mhz! 16 to 48k of RAM possible!) , but that is the machine I started learning to write code on, so it entertains me to play with it once in awhile.
Back in college, I wrote an emulator for a MIPS 1000 RISC CPU. Good times!
Last edited by MrSmooth on Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Rob wrote:But I will be honest, Vista 64-bit is really nice. I was really biased against Vista until I installed it. I've been using it since early summer and it's just been flawless. I should have followed the old advice of not judging a book by its cover...
I had a brief, but very enjoyable Vista experience myself. Then I found out our office VPN was still incompatible with Vista--this only a few months ago--and the fix was "forthcoming". Since I need that VPN access, it was back to XP...<sigh>
Rob wrote:All right! Good job, Tony. I can expect some Marvis and Proraso in the mail, right? Nyuk nyuk!
You may also want to install Guest Additions in Windows XP. The Additions should allow you to run XP in higher resolutions, most likely even full-screen. Be sure to take Snapshots of XP, that way you won't have to reinstall it again in the event it gets overtaken by some nasty viruses or spyware. You can just reload a Snapshot of a pre-infected XP and go about your merry way.
Rob, I downloaded Guest Additions and I can't get it to do much. I can't get full screen or anything better than 800 X 600. I'm just glad XP is working at all.
If you need a tube of Proraso PM me your address. I have a couple of tubes left from Italy.
Mr. Igg wrote:I had a brief, but very enjoyable Vista experience myself. Then I found out our office VPN was still incompatible with Vista--this only a few months ago--and the fix was "forthcoming". Since I need that VPN access, it was back to XP...<sigh>
From what I have read, MS completely changed the way VPNs work in Vista. It's been a big headache for everyone, so don't feel alone. Maybe MS will make VPNs easier to do in Windows 7. Time will tell.
tonyespo wrote:Rob, I downloaded Guest Additions and I can't get it to do much. I can't get full screen or anything better than 800 X 600. I'm just glad XP is working at all.
If you need a tube of Proraso PM me your address. I have a couple of tubes left from Italy.
TE
Hmmm, I wonder why it didn't give you some resolution options? Strange. I'll install my XP via VirtualBox tonight and see what I can find out. Oh, I really was just joking about the Proraso. I was just being silly.
Hey Tony, I just installed XP. I also installed the Guest Additions in XP, rebooted XP, and I was able to change my resolution all the way up to 1400 x 1050. I'm not sure why yours is stuck at 800 x 600. Maybe you could try reinstalling XP again? I am assuming your Vista is running in a resolution higher than 800 x 600? Sorry I can't be of more help on this.
Amazingly though, XP boots up faster within VirtualBox on Vista for me, than it does all by itself! That's just crazy. It boots in about 6 seconds for me. And it shuts down in about 3. Unreal.
Rob wrote:Hey Tony, I just installed XP. I also installed the Guest Additions in XP, rebooted XP, and I was able to change my resolution all the way up to 1400 x 1050. I'm not sure why yours is stuck at 800 x 600. Maybe you could try reinstalling XP again? I am assuming your Vista is running in a resolution higher than 800 x 600? Sorry I can't be of more help on this.
Amazingly though, XP boots up faster within VirtualBox on Vista for me, than it does all by itself! That's just crazy. It boots in about 6 seconds for me. And it shuts down in about 3. Unreal.
Thanks Rob for all your efforts. My Vista is higher than the 800 X 600 but I'm not sure what it is. I will get the laptop out later and check it. I'm sure there is some setting in Guest Additions that I didn't get right or something. My XP loads supper fast in Vista also.
Back to the ordinal post "Want to try out Linux"? My answer is yes. I have just formatted an old 60 gig HD and I installed it in my XP desktop. It now sits ready for me to play around with it. So where is a good place to download a copy of Linux that has most of the drivers and is also network capable? Years ago I tried one of the Linux things from Red Hat but it didn't support my sound card or printer. I'm sure it's much improved now. How about a link to a download site I can trust.
Christian, whoops! I did get the PM and I actually read it in my email and completely forgot to reply back through PM. Forgive me!
Tony, there are all sorts of great Linux choices out there that I am sure would work for your system. Linux has greatly improved in the past 2-3 years. It really is such an amazing turnaround from the days when I tried out Red Hat and when you did. If it weren't for gaming and two programs that I must use in Windows, I could actually be running Linux 100% of the time.
Rob, thanks for the links. I downloaded Ubuntu ISO and used magic ISO to burn it to CD rom. However I can't get it to load on boot up. I set up my Bios to boot from CD First but nothing happens. Any suggestions.
The only thing I can think of right off hand is the possibility that the CDROM drive itself is not connected to the motherboard. You did say you formatted and put a 60GB hard drive into that machine. It's possible the IDE ribbon cable came loose while you were inserting the 60GB drive. It's also possible that the CDROM drive could have its IDE settings wrong (cable select, master, slave). Or it could be none of that and just be a bad CD. Did you try to boot off the CD from your laptop? Don't worry, it won't change anything on your laptop when it boots. Just make sure to NOT install Ubuntu and you'll be fine.
My CD/DVD rom drive is a SATA drive. I have a 360 gig Sata HD and the rom drive is SATA also. The 60 gig drive is IDE. I bet that is the problem. I'll try the laptop and see what happens.
tonyespo wrote:Back to the ordinal post "Want to try out Linux"? My answer is yes. I have just formatted an old 60 gig HD and I installed it in my XP desktop. It now sits ready for me to play around with it. So where is a good place to download a copy of Linux that has most of the drivers and is also network capable? Years ago I tried one of the Linux things from Red Hat but it didn't support my sound card or printer. I'm sure it's much improved now. How about a link to a download site I can trust.
Tony,
at http://www.distrowatch.com you will be able to see a
list of different linux distributions with links to their website.
Thanks for the link. I can't believe how many different Linux operating systems there are. I still haven't load one yet. I've been playing around with burning the ISO's to CD.
So I installed the new Ubuntu on my Linux partition... WOW!
I don't know how it'll work with more recent hardware (my rig's about a year and a half old, maybe 2, but things change so fast...)
Anyways, in my experience with Ubuntu 8.10, they're getting VERY close to having the ease of use required for the average non-techie person to set up and run.
It has not frozen ONCE on me. No crashes either. Things seem pretty stable.
THEY FIXED THE FLASH PLAYER BUG!
At least as far as I can tell, I haven't had a crash with it yet...
Problems are...
By default the OS cannot issue a shut down command to the hardware. You have to add a couple lines to one of the files to fix it.
I'm having real annoyances with not having permission to modify certain folders in the /root directory. This can be done through the terminal though.
Desktop effects don't seem to work properly. Not a huge issue, I haven't tried to work-around/fix it.
Other than that, it seems very stable and simple, as far as Linux goes... I still find the Windows directory system and menus easier to navigate, but whatever...
The problem with running all these virtual machines, etc. ESPECIALLY if you're using them on Linux to compensate for a lack of Windows/Mac compatibility, is that they can completely strangle your system's resources.
A much more practical (although pricey) solution is to dual boot your computer off separate hard drives. We're past the days of master and slave drives (that's right, Bill Gates liberated his slaves), so just go ahead and install, then boot up (assuming you're using a SATA drive, not sure about others). This way, memory is only used on applications that you intend to use on that operating system. No wasted space for programs you can only use by draining your resources with a virtual machine. The cheap alternative would be to dual-partition a single hard drive. Although with 2 hard drives, if something goes wrong in Windows (or Linux), at least you only lose half your computer and maybe a hard drive.
For those of you running Linux (and who don't know about it yet), search the package manager for a little program called "hydrogen".
It's a drum beat sampling program. Great fun.
Personally for my Linux, I use Wine to handle my 'Windows-only' tasks. All I really need it for is games. Keep the work stuff on Windows.
P.S. Install Windows FIRST! Its installer INSISTS on taking up the entire hard drive. Ubuntu however has a built in partitioner specifically for dividing a Windows hard drive.
Tony, you may have to tell your BIOS to boot from SATA first. But I think you can tell it to boot from a particular SATA drive, as in 0, 1, 2, or 3. Figure out which SATA port your CDROM is in and tell BIOS to boot from that SATA port number. Linux shouldn't have any trouble booting from a SATA CD drive.
Jukkie, Ubuntu should have no trouble at all running on your system. I'm not sure why it won't issue the turn-off command to your hardware. Did you enable ACPI in BIOS and within Ubuntu? Have you tried any other distros?
