Thursday, July 05, 2012

Geekdom

I recently had to re-load the operating system on our family computer. I'd previously partitioned the 120 Gig hard drive to install Ubuntu, which was conflicting with my video card and the MS partition had become full up with photos and documents so I had to do something. I re-installed Windows and deleted all other partitions. It worked fine but while updating the software I accidentally installed some crappy malware that causes surveys to pop up on the computer all the time! I stupidly did this while trying to download drivers that are compatible with my operating system via some third party... DUMB Mistake! I then spent a few hours grinding through help forums to find a solution to my problem. I can't get the crap off our family computer it is extremely annoying! All options offered for removal will cost me money! I spat the dummy and gave up... eventually I downloaded the drivers I needed directly from the manufacturer of the hardware and the original problem was solved but I was left with dumb ass pop up windows! I am now more than ever determined to break free of MS mind control!

One problem I have is that I want to start using Ubuntu (I've been making half arsed attepts for the the past 7 years to do this) but the rest of the family are not at all comfortable trying a new operating system. So I have to leave the standard OS on the computer and find some way of using a different OS without disrupting their machine.

I started thinking and realized that I don't have to partition my hard drive to use the Ubuntu Operating System on our family computer! I started playing around with an old computer and discovered that I could install Ubuntu onto a computer which has no hard drive! By installing Ubuntu onto a USB thumb drive (Or whatever it is you call them!) I could boot directly from the stick! I did and it worked perfectly just like it was using a regular Hard Drive! How cool!

Bypassing THE MAN!

I decided to try it out on our old laptop which is very slow and it worked beautifully! All I had to do is plug it in while the computer was turned off, hit the power button, then F12 when the disc starts spinning. I select boot from USB and the system is off and running! The really cool thing about this is that the computer is performing better via an umbilical chord to a USB stick than it did directly from the Hard Drive! As soon as I get some free time I'll get to work tweeking the system so I can access all the cool stuff Lynix has developed since I last tried using it!   


2 comments:

GreenComotion said...

David,
Linux has come a long way. I used it, for non-recreational purposes, back in the early 90s. Recently, I installed Ubuntu on one of my laptops. Alas, the screen on that thing broke, so Ubuntu, at least for now.

Good luck retrieving your files off the computer.

Paz :)
Chandra

David J said...

Thanks Paz,
It's working OK but the version of Ubuntu seems not to have any accessories, although I can find programs like Gimp when I search for them... Weird, I haven't found the right fix yet.