Computer woes

[mapsedge]

So, my Windows 2000 file server finally died. It's ten years old at least, so there was no big surprise in that. I grabbed my only unused box - an old temperamental machine I inherited that can't install Windows2K^† but did take Xandros* - and hooked it up. Worked great. The NTFS formatted drive I used for storage read, wrote and shared fine.

Then Ubuntu 7.0 came out. Hmmm, says I, since Xandros is now a Microsoft product, let's try Ubuntu.

Bad move.

Very bad move.

Won't mount an NTFS drive. I've altered the fstab file, tried to mount from a terminal session, done three different methods from three different websites. Can't do it because I'm not "root".  Can't do it because of "unspecified error".  Can't do it because..."well, no reason, just because".  Houston, that's no-go for launch. 

Okay, I guess I'll go back to Xandros. What? I tossed the CD when Microsoft bought them? Shit.

You know, before the M$ announcement, you could do a .torrent search and find a hundred instances of Xandros, from the crappy free version all the way up to Home Premium, with down speeds as high as my DSL connection would allow. Now? Not so much. ETA: 1w 3d. 

That number fluctuates wildly.  Fifteen minutes ago, it said "5h 10m".  I'm glad there's nothing mission critical on the drive.


^† "Hardware error" on boot-up. I had one of the most talented hardware guys I know look at it who couldn't narrow down the problem.
* Xandros is yet another Linux distro, but made to look and behave like M$ Windows.

Comments

[starwyse.livejournal.com]

I know absolutely nothing about computer geek stuff...
and every geek on my flist is screaming obscenities about Ubuntu

S~

"Microsoft Minutes"

[iarraidh.livejournal.com]

I've always found Micro$oft's estimation of time to be as unreliable as anything else they produce.
This used to be a source of amusement back at the office when we were doing file copies across the network.
One time I think the time estimate fluctuated between 5 minutes and several million minutes many times when copying a large file when network traffic peaked.

M$oft buyin Umbuntu is typical. If you can't beat 'em - BUY 'em.

I had the same thing happen with Yahoo.
I've been running a chat group on Yahoo for years. When their performance dropped at the same time they started charging for things like including file attachments and POP access, I went looking.
I found eGroups; it was lovely.
Just as I started moving my group over - Yahoo bought them.

[billthetailor.livejournal.com]

From what I can figure it's a terrific little system on it's own, but so far doesn't play nice with the other kids on the playground (regardless of what its many apologists say). I'd love to switch, but.

And that's why Windows is still the biggest kid on the block.

Re: "Microsoft Minutes"

[billthetailor.livejournal.com]

Just for clarity (and you probably already know all this stuff):

My torrent client is UTorrent, open source. Because Xandros isn't so popular anymore, the number of seeds has dropped to fewer than five. Hence, the long download.

Ubuntu: open source. Many adherents, few of them former Man On The Street Windows Users because it's hard to use in The Real World. And I'm no slouch.

Xandros: great Windows replacement with a Linux kernel. All the good things about Linux plus all the good things about Windows. Bought by M$.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Actually, there is no Ubuntu 7.0; the numbering system is .. There are two releases of Ubuntu in 2007: Ubuntu 7.4 and Ubuntu 7.10. I wonder whether you got 7.4, because I recall reading that the read/write NTFS file system code comes with 7.10.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Oops... BNF and HTML fighting one another. The Ubuntu release numbering scheme has the year minus 2000, then a period, then the month.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Just confirmed it by looking at ubuntu.com; Gutsy Gibbon does support read/write access to NTFS file systems by default out of the box.

[billthetailor.livejournal.com]

And, apparently doesn't like it when you try to mount an NTFS drive from a Windows box that wasn't shut down correctly. I did finally get the thing mounted and shared.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

That's for safety's sake; best not to mount a potentially broken file system and walk on data. Run fsck on it before mounting.