Brain surgery in Linux

[Frank]

I just bought an Asus eee 900 black, and I installed Ubuntu 8.04 Beta on it. Except for a few minor things that took me half a day to figure out and resolve (auto-enable of sound, WiFi and a BlueTooth mouse, pretty typical), all went well.

But, the 20 GB SSD is actually a fast 4 GB flash and a slower 16 GB flash. I put / on the 4 GB one, and /home and swap (only for hibernate) on the 16 GB one. And after installing a bunch of stuff, the 4 GB / was filled.

Error, error!

On Windows, this would be a case of uninstall and reinstall all or format C: and D:, swap them and start all over again. Except, on Linux, you can move stuff around as you see fit. You can simply move some random part of the file system to a different location, if you like. Like, /usr/lib to the data drive. And afterwards, when all works as intended, you can mount the old one to a different place to clean it up.

Brain surgery. And that actually works, with only changing a single configuration file! I love things like that.

 

[BRiT]

You can actually do the same things in Windows. There's no reason you have to mount drives using a drive letter, you can mount them to a directory.

 

[Frank]

Yes. If you have the right drivers installed, format them as dynamic volumes and don't mind that they probably won't be readable if the computer breaks down.

But, anyway, that was my monthly post about: "Linux rocks! Although there are still some problems." And the default reaction to that is: "So what? Windows does everything better. You're a minority and fanboy. Nobody cares."


Vista has become a serious problem for M$. They voiced to keep XP alive and sell a license for $ 3 (!!!) to anyone who rather runs Linux, like any Chinese, or OLPC user. They even took great pains to build a custom XP that actually works on that laptop, because the producers were particularly adamant in only wanting to go with Linux. They are losing market share to Linux by the bucketload.

Linux actually works if you get it preinstalled, and it's cheaper for the producers by far.

 

[aaaaa00]

Yes. If you have the right drivers installed, format them as dynamic volumes and don't mind that they probably won't be readable if the computer breaks down.

In vista you can just use mklink.exe. You don't need dynamic volumes or special drivers. The only things I wouldn't move is anything under \windows (and especially nothing under \windows\system32 or \windows\system32\drivers).

 

[Frank]

In vista you can just use mklink.exe. You don't need dynamic volumes or special drivers. The only things I wouldn't move is anything under \windows (and especially nothing under \windows\system32 or \windows\system32\drivers).

Yes, and that was what made me make this thread.

But I know Microsoft Windows (and especially Vista) Rules, so I'll wait a year or so until Linux has become mainstream.

But in the mean time, I think it's quite interesting that XP "downgrades" are as immensely popular as they are.

 

[BRiT]

Frank, my response wasn't about saying Windows is better. I've used Linux since the 0.10 days, so please stop reading into posts certain meanings which are not there.

I'm just letting people know about a little known feature that is VERY useful if they're in the Windows OS realm. It seems you didn't know about it, so I'm sure others might not have either. As has been said, there is no need to have special drivers or format the drive special either. If you plan it out somewhat, you don't even need to use MKLINK either.

On my development systems, C:\~\ is my home directory which is actually an entirely different drive, and C:\~\Archive is a different drive too.

 

[nutball]

I'm just letting people know about a little known feature that is VERY useful if they're in the Windows OS realm. It seems you didn't know about it, so I'm sure others might not have either.

That's very useful, thanks. Solves a number of things I'd been wondering about under Windows.

 

[MuFu]

How are you finding the eee, Frank?

I'm tempted but will prob wait out for the MSI Wind (or just go nuts and get a Sony TZ).

 

[Frank]

Frank, my response wasn't about saying Windows is better. I've used Linux since the 0.10 days, so please stop reading into posts certain meanings which are not there.

I'm just letting people know about a little known feature that is VERY useful if they're in the Windows OS realm. It seems you didn't know about it, so I'm sure others might not have either. As has been said, there is no need to have special drivers or format the drive special either. If you plan it out somewhat, you don't even need to use MKLINK either.

On my development systems, C:\~\ is my home directory which is actually an entirely different drive, and C:\~\Archive is a different drive too.

I apologize. I know it's possible and agree that it's nice that Windows does support this as well nowadays.

However, the last time I tried to do so, I had to format the drives as dynamic volumes and read that it might be almost impossible to extract the data by inserting the disk in a different computer if I did that and mounted it at a directory. And for most options you need to use the server edition.

I wouldn't try to do such a thing on the fly, and I rather doubt it would work if I moved, say, System32 to a different disk like that.

 

[Frank]

How are you finding the eee, Frank?

I'm tempted but will prob wait out for the MSI Wind (or just go nuts and get a Sony TZ).

It's just right. The MSI Wind and HP 2133 are both wider and heavier, and the HP screen is glossy and has a much too large resolution. And the eee 901 will be too expensive (like the HP in a usable configuration).

The processor is fine, the screen is just right, the keyboard is small but works fine, I like the 4 + 16 GB SSD better than a hard disk and it feels sturdy. The only things I don't like are the GPU (GMA 900), the 4400 mA/h battery (about two hours, Asus promised a 5800 mA/h one) and that the extra 16 GB SSD is noticeable slower than a hard disk or the 4 GB SSD.

In short: I like it a lot, it works very well, but don't expect to play any recent games on it. It's perfect for older or simpler games, multimedia, browsing and a bit of work on the go. And most Windows apps run surprisingly well in Wine.

 

[MuFu]

Cool, thx.

In the UK we can upgrade the battery to 5800mAH for £10 - not sure it's the same in the Netherlands (?). There's also supposed to be a BIOS update out that stretches the battery life by ~30mins.

 

[Blazkowicz]

the PC I'm typing this on has the /home mounted via NFS (and another volume, /asso), login is done thanks to the email/LDAP server. The main PC, called paul-sud and in a locked closet, where /home and /asso are physically located, runs ubuntu 7.04. So do the other PCs (all second hand, got for free). you can login on the main PC (which also does proxy and routing duties).

You can also login on X terminals (diskless P2 with one stick of ram, PXE booting), which are slaves of the main PC. 5 users can do desktop/surfing on that single core PC w/ 1GB (which will be upgraded because we can, Q9300 w/ 8GB, 750GB HDD. I have trouble imagining what this computing power will be for . besides toying with virtual machines)

that setup is for student associations. it's quite amazing what you can do with linux, with no licensing costs whatsoever, ssh-ing in all directions, true multi-user for free (a bit expensive under windoze!) etc.

another PC is a firewall with 3 NICs (one an 3COM ISA), P2 found in dumpster.

 

[Frank]

Yes, I did a thing like that on my last job: mount the important (Linux) server disks of most of our small customers with NFS through a VPN connection as a single, virtual filesystem on the central server. I could see and write all, they couldn't see one another. And I could manage everything from anywhere, as long as I had internet access. Great for backups as well.

I had to access the other disks through terminal connections and the Windows server ones through RDC. That's not nearly as convenient.