Computer

Totally failed attempt to use Linux

by on Jan.05, 2013, under Computer

So I decided today that I’d try out the Steam for Linux Beta.

This involved installing Linux, as the Steam client is designed for Ubuntu that’s what I went to install just to avoid any compatibility issues.

So as you can install Ubuntu in 3 ways (4 if you include as a virtual machine) I decided I’d go with the easier none destructive install where it creates its own kinda Virtual Machine. Well this just didn’t work and maybe I should have stopped there.

I hen tried to install it along side of Windows, and this also failed as it couldn’t find Windows and just wanted to wipe my disks, which I didn’t really want to do yet.

I I find out how to make Windows show up again, a quick reboot, and a command and it detects windows, select to install along side of windows. Straight forward enough.

But no it neglects to offer me that all important “which of these 2 drives would you like me to resize to make room?” option, and decides it’s going to install on my nice fast SSD (where I didn’t really want it).

Short wait, the install finishes, its really quite fast. Computer reboots and within seconds I’ve got a desktop, its fast, I mean really fast!

So now to follow the installation instructions, download Steam and set up my Graphics.

So as soon as I set the graphic drivers I need and restart to load them, pretty much all the important things stopped working, no task bar no Ubuntu equivalent of a start menu. all gone, and Steam only worked with the stock slow clunky drivers, but I suspect that’s because the faster proprietary Nvidia drivers broke too much of my system.

So Ubuntu just plain doesn’t work for me, back to Windows at least everything still works there and I’ll try again later.

AND….

I have no Windows install, Ubuntu only decided to wipe my SSD, instead of installing along side windows it installed OVER windows!

So Ubuntu, Pro: Its mega fast 🙂 Con: it doesn’t work and overwrites windows!

So yeah, I now have Windows re-installed, thanks to having the disks and everything that matters is reconfigured thanks to just about everything being synced into various clouds, and all my local data was stored on a different drive so only software re-installs, no big losses 🙂

Looks like for now I’ll still be using Windows, soon maybe I’ll be able to switch over to Linux where it promises to be faster, but till everything’s ported and I can get it to work I’ll stick with Windows, at least it works for me.

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What to do?

by on Mar.30, 2010, under Computer

Getting 2 1TB drives delivered

So do I, set them up RAID 1 and have 1TB of storage with a mirrored backup

or

RAID 0 and have a single 2TB fast drive, but then will need to keep my existing 500GB drive for essential backups

hmm performance and small backup or a full backup so better recovery?

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The great pc quieting and cooling game…

by on Jan.09, 2010, under Computer

For a while now my Pc’s been stupidly noisy, I tracked the noise down to the cpu fan and it just wouldn’t slow down as it couldn’t keep my processor cool.

On top of the noise I’ve been having a few crashes in games for a while, always just put it down to either the cpu or gpu getting too hot. (continue reading…)

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Thinking about getting…

by on Jul.27, 2007, under Computer

these

Comes to ~£450 for quite a nice system 🙂 seems to get cheaper everytime I look

I don’t know how processor speeds work but I’m ona 3.2Ghz machine and thinking of upgrading to a quad 2.4Ghz one thats an estimated 9.6Ghz of processing power 🙂 or 3x the speed of my old one, double the ram and a more up to date graphics card all on a new motherboard to hold them

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The Computer upgrade continues

by on Jul.11, 2007, under Computer

Its never going to be finished

The extra fans I put in are quite noisy so I’m going to quieten them down a bit

first step is to get a fan controller, the one linked below can control 6 fans and has a few handy extras like a card reader

(continue reading…)

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