Thread: Just started running linux

OK

I know you can dual boot win/linux, but is it possible to have them installed on completely separate physical drives ?

I was thinking along the lines of buying a new drive and installing one of the linux flavours to give it a try.


Martyn

No reason why not. I think so long as the win disk is a master, you should be able to select the linux disk as a slave and make your choice from the bios??

Or you could get fancy and have a linux boot partition set up with the other linux partitions on the second drive.

Alan

Originally Posted by Bushie

OK

I know you can dual boot win/linux, but is it possible to have them installed on completely separate physical drives ?

I was thinking along the lines of buying a new drive and installing one of the linux flavours to give it a try.


Martyn

You could but I think you would have to change the boot sequence in the BIOS to specify which OS you booted.

Hey guys. upon your recommendation i have installed ubuntu 9 on my laptop. I have not done so on the desktop yet, as i have never used linux before and am just exploring the limitations.

So far pretty happy with it. I do occassionally get frustrated with not understanding all the linux jargon used to load software, and instructions being given in command line!! Surley they must realise that if its to become a serious contender, people will not accept it unless its point and click.

Anyhoo, have managed to navigate my way around most of this, and learnt a bit. Have just about everything installed that i need, except the ability to play DVD's.

I gather there is some legal issue with havung software onboard a free system to play DVD, because no licences have been payed!??
All the searches I've done have returned advice that is 07-08 vintage regarding a file libdvdcss2. I'm pretty sure i have installed it with VLC but still no DVD playback. Avi's etc are ok, just DVD on disc.

Any thoughts?

cheers
Nick

Originally Posted by disco2hse

Well, I guess I've seen far too many promises in this industry and until I see a product that is at least alpha, then it is vapourware.

MS have used it as a strategy for the past couple of decades to offset their rivals and to great success.

Alan

I think you are being very brave dismissing Google. They have a reputation of delivering or even over delivering on what they promise. Don't let MS and their FUD influence your thinking.

Personally I'll be amazed if the new Google OS isn't the dominant OS in 5-10 years. MS have been on a downwards spiral for years.

I would.

MS have a dominant position in the market. They will stay dominant simply because of market inertia. Linux has displaced any likelihood that they might have a dominance in the server market (which they never did), but it has done far more damage to Sun, IBM, SGI, etc. But so far as the PC desktop market is concerned, it has little more than a bump. Another OS from Google is, I think, more likely to go the way of BeOS unless it has do something that is very different from what the incumbents can already do.

Google is just a company with shareholders. Like any listed company they have to do whatever it takes to keep their share price up and the reality is that the market will decide whether or not any actual product is delivered. Yes it is true that they have invested a large amount into R&D but their shareholders will not let them do that for too long before they show a decent ROI. If that means dropping certain projects that may not return sufficient profit then that is what you will see. And if their shareholders say that Google's core business is *not* in PC based OS' then hot potatoes come to mind. Of course it may happen, who knows. I don 't.

Alan

Originally Posted by Hastykiwi

Hey guys. upon your recommendation i have installed ubuntu 9 on my laptop. I have not done so on the desktop yet, as i have never used linux before and am just exploring the limitations.

So far pretty happy with it. I do occassionaly get frustrated with not understanding all the linux jargon used to load software, and instructions being given in command line!! Surley they must realise that if its to become a serious contender, people will not accept it unless its point and click.

Anyhoo, have managed to navigate my way around most of this, and learnt a bit. Have just about everything installed that i need, except the ability to play DVD's.

I gather there is some legal issue with havung software onboard a free system to play DVD, because no licences have been payed!??
All the searches I've done have returned advice that is 07-08 vintage regarding a file libdvdcss2. I'm pretty sure i have installed it with VLC but still no DVD playback. Avi's etc are ok, just DVD on disc.

Any thoughts?

cheers
Nick

Because Linux is open source there is a legal thing about the DVD playback, many Lin Distros do not provide it as a default install. You can overcome this though my installing in it separately. Depends on your Linux Distro you are using, IE if you are running Ubuntu /Kubuntu, all that's need is to do a google and it will tell you how.
I installed the medibuntu into the repos and it will install the required stuff to install the lidvdcss.
It's simple just google it.
Also if you use a package manager ie in kubuntu " synaptic" it will open a GIU screen where you can choose any additional applications from the repositories, themn it's just mark and apply and the system installs itself and any dependancies the app may need.

Another plus I found with linux over Microsoft... in the event od a power failure, Ms will give you the Check disc screen and throws fits. .... Linux just boots up and asks if you want to start a new session or go back to what you were working on, and reopens it to where you left off.

Here you go. the Medibuntu is the medical version of ubuntu, so there for all the codecs etc must be provided.( installing the medibuntu into the repos does not change your current desktop or anything else, it's just adding some extra features to the repository

Open your terminal and copy and paste these commands exactly and press enter on keyboard, it will ask for your sudo (root aka adminstrater password, type that in.)

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/`lsb_release -cs`.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list; sudo apt-get -q update; sudo apt-get --yes -q --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring; sudo apt-get -q update

Then this next command

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

You may be asked to accept this package even though it cannot be
authenticated. This is normal; typing "Yes" means you trust Medibuntu.

Now copy and paste this command

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

That should see you playing DVDs.

I am very interested in ditching windows for my home laptop. I use a 7.2mbps bigpond wireless connection. I rang their tech help twerps and was told that the connection software wasnt compatible with ubuntu (or anything but windows and Mc). Are they right? can i get around the prob?