Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and linux

Dual Booting For Dummies

mannequito — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:14:17 -0800

Two-part question regarding a potential XP/Ubuntu dual-boot setup: a)Do I still worry about viruses if I'm not accessing the internet from the XP half? b) From reading online it seems that I'll be able to access files from the XP half while in Ubuntu, but will the opposite be true? I've actually never owned a Windows machine so apologies if I seem over paranoid about viruses. I'm just finally considering this in order to be able to record music and use my computer for djing.

And, in case the second question is confusing, what I mean is that as I understand it, anything I put on the computer in Windows will be accessible on the other operating system. But since I would be using Ubuntu for any downloading I'd like to know if that will be readily accessible in XP or if it would require copying it to an external harddrive, booting into Windows, and recopying it?

thanks everyone.

My Dream Dual Boot Netbook

lemonfridge — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:39:01 -0800

Help me build my perfect netbook! I've had my iBook G4 since I started Uni over 6 years ago, but it's starting to show it's age and things are starting to play up (apart from the battery!)

So I've ordered myself a Samsung NC20 with a 2Gb of RAM upgrade. I'd really like to dual or triple boot between Windows, OSX, and....something.

1. It comes with XP, but I'm tempted to go for a Windows 7 upgrade. Thoughts?

I like OSX and wouldn't mind keeping it an option.

2. I'd like a flavour of Linux or possible the new Google OS. Thoughts?

3. I really like how quickly my current iBook waked up when I open the lid. Can I expect the same thing from my new NC20?

4. Where is the best guide to acheive what I want? I've never dual booted anything before.

Where to get started with Python GUI programming?

cowbellemoo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:46:59 -0800

Which Python GUI framework is right for someone new to GUI programming? But who may also aspire to open source community (linux) development/involvement? Cross platform, wonderful documentation/tutorials, and cruft-free new technology are also welcome. My current need is just for a simple GUI front end for scripts I write in work for Windows, but one day I'd like to have GUI skills robust enough to help out with open source development. I've given this list a look, but I really don't know where to start. I know GTK/Qt are the most commonly utilized, but are there any exciting new next-generation graphical toolkits? What's fun to learn? What are your favorite tutorials, books, or resources for it?

Any and all suggestions welcome! Thanks!

How to centralize adminsitration of multiple Unix machines (and others)?

Imhotep is Invisible — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:45:34 -0800

I'm curious as to what are the current "best practices" when it comes to centralized administration of a network of Unix (primarily Linux, but not necessarily so) machines? Essentially, what is the equivalent of Active Directory for a network with one or more Unix hosts? The immediate answer I come up with would be something like OpenLDAP plus PAM but what I'm looking for is the suite of tools (GUI and CLI apps) for managing the directory, deploying software, centralizing sign-on and security, managing printers, etc. In a perfect world, I would like to centralize administration of Windows, Unix, and OS X machines via a single directory service, though I imagine such a solution would be expensive and/or cumbersome if it even existed. Or is this something Samba 4 will do?

What is the server OS market share?

espertus — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:35:37 -0800

Where can I find estimates of server operating system market shares? To be concrete, I'd like to know what percentage of web servers, either by absolute numbers or popularity, use Linux, Windows, etc.

Auto backup of files

gilsonal — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 08:57:11 -0800

I have two computers, one Windows, one Linux. How can I make it so they synchronize automatically with each other, as in, I update the file on one computer, and the updated file gets put onto the other? Networking? Using an external hard drive? What software might be useful? Bonus points for free software

Which distro of Linux should I try?

n3rt — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:20:04 -0800

Which one of the multitude of Linux distros should someone who's never used Linux before give a go? I''m by no means a PC-phobe [or a Windows-phobe for that matter] but I've just done a couple of system backups and reinstalls of Vista, and am looking at my laptop [Acer Aspire 720Z with 2GB RAM, Intel Core-Duo] with a "hmm, what if eye, and wonder whether I should finally give a Linux distro a try.

My computing background was initially Amigas [hey, configuring Ami-TCP by hand was fun! To a certain extent... :) ] and I'm a graphic designer by profession. I already use a fair bit of Inkscape / GIMP so I'm not scared of new apps to replace anything, I'm just stumped at what to try from the various advice proffered by various techy-types here.

Any advice greatly appreciated - and play nicely! :) [Remembers the Amiga vs PC debate years ago...]

tar -pz in Windows?

oblio_one — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:49:57 -0800

I'm trying to find a procedure to create a zip file in Windows and preserve Unix file permissions from the original files... I have a set of bash scripts to be archived, originally created on a linux machine with file permissions 755. Some people in our group are using Windows and if they archive the files then pass them back to a Linux user, the file permissions are lost, unzip extracts files with 644 permission, so an additional step is needed to execute them. No problem if the archival was preformed on linux, but not all members of our group are comfortable with it.

Situation is the same whether using the default XP "Send to compressed", or something like winRar or 7-zip, I can't find any option that will respect / preserve the UNIX permissions from Windows, anyone know of a way?

What's a good simple and cheap media or file server setup?

wastelands — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:15:38 -0800

Advice for a server newb who needs help getting started with a simple media/backup/torrent server? I've got a 438 GB movie collection an on external 500 GB USB hard drive right now, so I need to upgrade. I was thinking of buying two 1 TB external drives and using rsync for a poor man's RAID 1 setup. But for good drives plus shipping, that's nearly $250, and I thought, why not just setup a real file server? And maybe get a Bit Torrent thingy going too, so I could turn off my main computer at night and keep transfers going? Heck, I'd probably come up with other useful things for the server to do too.

But I don't know where to start. For hardware, looking at, say, a Dell Inspiron 530 ($379), it's too powerful and too expensive for what I'd use it for.

And for the OS... Windows Home Server? Ubuntu? I don't know what'd be easiest.

Ideas? Thanks!

Choosing a filesystem for an external hdd

contraption — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:10:54 -0800

What filesystem should I use on my new USB 2.0 external hard drive? It'll mostly stay attached to an Ubuntu box and be used to store large video files for streaming to playback devices on my network, but I'd also like to be able to take it to a friend's house and plug it into whatever computer they happen to have. The files will be large and replaceable, so I'm not even going to attempt to keep backups. I'm guessing it should be a Microsoft filesystem, since afaik Windows isn't happy with anything else and every other major OS has some way of dealing with them. Should it be NTFS? Some version of FAT? What tool should I use to do the formatting? I also have Windows and OS X machines available for setup.

Invisible automatic backup?

ConstantineXVI — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:04:02 -0800

Want to build a backup/storage/print server for a home network that the users will never have to be aware of Our desktop recently died of capacitor plague. Instead of simply replacing the desktop, we've been considering buying netbooks for the kids, likely running WinXP (we already have a laptop or two ourselves). At the core's going to be a lightweight machine, preferably running Linux that's going to handle storage (easy enough), printing (again), and the tricky part, backup.

Whenever they're connected to our home WiFi, I want their netbooks to automatically back up their data to the server, in case of disaster. More importantly, I don't want them to lift a finger or be aware of the process at all. Chronological backups like Time Machine wouldn't be a bad idea, but not necessary.

DVD Filesystems

claudius — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:53:10 -0800

What would cause certain folders to show up when a DVD is mounted under Windows (XP, FWIW), but not to show up under Linux (Ubuntu Intrepid)? I was given the wonderful New York Times Complete Front Pages as a birthday present, but I can't see all the folders when running in Linux (when it is automounted, or the ripped image is mounted loopback). I'm aware of Rock Ridge and Joliet extensions, but AFAIR, these are for POSIX permissions and Unicode filenames respectively (and are for CDROMS).

What could be going on?

And as an addendum, how are .idx and .pdx files (indices, I presume) handled by Acrobat?

Two disparate servers need to communicate

davcoo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:48:36 -0800

A Windows server needs to tell a Linux Web server to change the contents of a Web page. I don't know how the first can communicate this to the second, or how the second can then make the change. We have two servers:
[A] runs Windows Server 2003 (no http server).
[B] runs Linux, and Tomcat is its http server.

The home page on [B] is login.jsp and normally displays "Welcome".

When a particular C# program begins running on [A], login.jsp needs to display "[B] is not available".

When the program on [A] finishes, login.jsp needs to again display "Welcome".

BTW I'm more comfortable with Windows than with Linux. Thanks for any input.

Printers that will work with Windows, OS X and Linux?

northernsoul — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:11:51 -0800

Looking for a printer that will work with Windows (Vista), OS X and Linux. My second hand HP Laserjet 5N is on it's last legs and it's time to replace it. One thing that was great about it was that it has support for Windows, OS X and Linux, and I run in mixed environment. First party support for Windows and Mac is a must, and I can live with third party support for Linux as long as the drivers are quality, although I'd prefer first party. My budget is $200 - $300 Canadian. I'm open to refurbs, especially HPs, since I can attest even their old printers are (usually) built to last. Any suggestions?

"To boot, or not to boot."

bradly — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:37:40 -0800

I am finally making the jump to linux from Windows 7! To the 1337 linux askmefites: Is having the option of Windows as a secondary/emergency OS even important, or would I be better off keeping my machine strictly linux? Right now I am running Windows 7 on a notebook. What steps do I need to take to have 7 as a dual boot?

Also, and FWIW, I have the MS Office Suite registered, but no other paid software I am too concerned with keeping.

Thanks!

Mounting problems in Win 7

Aanidaani — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:39:36 -0800

Windows 7: Is there any way to mount ext3/ext2 partitions in Windows 7? I would use Ext2 IFS but it's not compatible with the beta.

Why does Ubuntu/linux make it so freaking difficult to do the equivalent of the Windows command "Map Network Drive"?

Jackie_Treehorn — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:08:22 -0800

For the purposes of using Amarok on my laptop, which can not be told that my music folder is located in a shared folder on my media center (as far as I can see), I need to permanently mount the shared music network folder in Ubuntu. They don't make it very easy it seems. Have to use a bunch of comand line editing to get it done? Come on Ubuntu!

Alternative to Papers

Aanidaani — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:16:27 -0800

I recently found a fantastic program for managing research literature on OSX and I'm looking for a similar program for Windows and Linux. The program for OSX is called Papers and is just beautiful. I really love the interface and it connects to all kinds of databases to make importing papers very easy. Is there anything like this for Windows or Linux?

Can I get high availability with a modest budget?

flabdablet — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:34:11 -0800

How can I set up the virtual server environment I want, using as much open source and as little proprietary software as possible? I'm the technician / sysadmin at a primary school, which will be updating its on-campus server boxes early next year.

Both our existing boxes run Windows Server 2003. Admin1.admin.local runs SQL Server Express and the school administrative database and serves files to four admin workstations; curricserver.curric.local is pretty much a pure file server for 70 classroom workstations, making extensive use of NTFS permissions to manage access control. All workstations run Windows XP.

Admin1 is the PDC for admin.local (10.145.172.0/23), and curricserver is the PDC for curric.local (10.129.172.0/23). An upstream-managed router connects both subnets to the Internet, and also allows admin.local hosts to send UDP datagrams and establish TCP connections to curric.local, though not the other way around. No broadcast traffic transits the router. The router's link to the admin.local subnet is ten mbits/s, which is fine for internet but sucks for cross-subnet file serving.

Admin1 and curricserver each have a UPS. I use external USB drives for backup. I am pretty happy with the way each of the servers is currently set up.

Next year, we'll also be replacing our existing MS Access-based student reports package with a new web-based one from the same company. I have no reason to believe that this will go well. The company recommends hosting this thing on a dedicated box, which will basically be running SQL Server Express and IIS and not much else. I have no wish to install IIS on either admin1 or curricserver, so I'm happy to agree with them.

Now, rather than buy three new boxes and a new UPS and another set of backup drives next year, I'd rather buy two new boxes with i7's and loads of RAM, run a Linux on them with something like Heartbeat in it, and create the three W2k3 servers I need virtually.

It seems to me that doing this would allow me to (a) keep using the same virtual servers year after year after year, while updating the underlying Heartbeat cluster as often as necessary to suit the school's hardware management policy (b) avoid single points of failure for all servers (c) centralize my backup task (d) use solid Unix system administration tools for disk snapshot and backup management instead of whatever some random commercial vendor claims to have invented this year (e) save the school some money (f) easily bypass the upstream-managed router's connection between our two subnets, allowing me to set up the same safe one-way routing policy at gigabit speeds.

Questions:

1. Is this idea Wrong in any important respect? I haven't had much hands-on VM experience, but I have enough Windows expertise to migrate our existing server setups to other hardware (even virtual hardware), probably without needing to do a Windows reinstall, a long enough beard and enough open source happy drink to see the project through, and the intention to document it thoroughly enough to stop it turning all white-elephant for the next guy.

2. Will Heartbeat in fact let me set up three VM's that will normally run on Tweedledum but reboot themselves automagically on Tweedledee if Tweedledum dies?

3. Which VM environments will let me put a Windows VM in charge of a physical network adapter, so I can serve files from a Windows VM over gigabit Ethernet without undue performance penalty?

4. Am I correct in assuming that I want N+2 physical network adapters in each physical box (one for each of N virtual machines to connect to an appropriate network switch, plus one to do a point-to-point link for DRBD, plus one to talk to the host OS via an appropriate network switch? Or, since the virtual replacement for admin1 is only going to be talking to four workstations, do I actually need a dedicated physical network adapter for that VM?

5. Is there any good technical reason for my visceral unwillingness to install IIS on anything except its own dedicated (physical or virtual) box?

6. What's the obvious question I've completely forgotten to ask?

Can my heterogenously equipped family video chat with each other?

pharm — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:40:29 -0800

Cross-platform video conferencing: Linux/OSX/Windows. Is it possible? My geographically spread family covers the gamut of modern operating systems. Is there a video chat application (or inter-operable set of applications) that we can all use to talk to each other online?

Last time I looked, video conferencing only really seemed to work if both ends were using the same application & there was certainly nothing available that covered Linux, Mac and Windows. Even Mac & Windows seemed problematic. Have things improved? Can I just get everyone to install Skype?

Replacing Windows

pilibeen — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:38:34 -0800

I'm thinking of getting rid of Windows XP and switching to a Linux distro....and I have some questions. I've used Xubuntu on an old laptop in the past, and have been relatively happy with it. My desktop, which has XP on it, is a ~5 yo Dell XPS 400, with the original XP install. It's really started to creep the last year or so, and it takes forever for the thing to startup, and apps to load - when they finally load they frequently crash. When I run the occasional antivirus/antispyware program I usually come up with something that needs repaired/quarantined.

So is this a good candidate for a complete wipe of windows? I have Wubi installed and the performance of Ubuntu doesn't seem that great. Could this be because of my shoddy windows partition?

If I should just clear Windows, how exactly should I setup my partitions on the new Linux install? I've heard of people making a separate partition for their home folder or something, so it makes upgrading easier. Does this make sense?

Finally, I basically just use my desktop for surfing, word processing, playing mp3's, and watching movies. Is Ubuntu a good candidate for this - or is it mostly bloat? Would I be better off with something a little more customizeable? My highest priority would be speed, but I'd also like a distro that looks clean and modern. I don't need any fancy rotating cube effects, etc.

Thanks for the help

Windows XP, XP64, Vista, and Linux machines refuse to play nicely together.

Nixie Pixel — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:02:09 -0800

Windows XP, XP64, Vista, and Linux machines refuse to play nicely together - Why can't I get them to ping each other? I am trying to hook up a mixed network for file/print sharing, network gaming and the like, but I seem to be having basic IP issues and I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out the problem! I am attempting to set up a mixed wired/wireless network spread out across multiple rooms. Currently I am using a D-Link DGL-4300 wireless router to share the (single) IP address given by my ISP through NAT to the wired/wireless network. To be thorough I'll give you the network topology (though I have already ruled out hardware issues):

Three rooms are wired back to the network closet using the T568B standard, and connected via cat-5 cables to the DGL-4300. In room A one Windows XP64 Pro SP2 computer (for security Windows Defender only) is connected directly from the wall jack.

In room B one Windows XP SP2 computer (Comodo Firewall) is connected via a 5-Port Linksys hub.

In room C one Xbox 360 and one Windows XP Home SP2 computer (Norton 360 installed) are connected to the wall jack via a Dynex 10/100 5-Port fast ethernet switch, and chained to that is a Netgear 8-Port 10/100 fast ethernet switch. Connected to this are one Windows XP64 Pro SP2 machine (Comodo Firewall), one Windows XP Home SP2 machine (Comodo Firewall), and usually one D-Link wireless router (with DHCP server turned off, to extend the wireless network) though this is currently disconnected to help troubleshoot the wired network problems.

Also in the building are another Xbox 360 connected wirelessly and three laptops. One is XP Home SP2 (norton), one Vista Home Premium (Norton), and the last one is the laptop I have been using to test the physical connections and hardware - I'm dual booting Vista Home Premium (Comodo) and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10).

Here is the problem: Every single machine sees the internet without problems. They all ping the router, see web sites, reach the DNS server and sites by both name & IP address, and generally are happy when it comes to things outside of the trusted network. However, only one computer on the network is able to be pinged, by every other computer - the XP64 machine in room A. I can't test outgoing pings from the Xbox 360s, but they cannot be pinged.

The only exception to this is my Vista/Linux laptop - when booting to Linux, the Linux machine is able to be pinged by any computer on the network (and it happily and easily sees the PC in room A, far less painfully than networks setup on Windows...). However, booting it to Vista makes it unreachable. It makes no difference if the machine is connected wirelessly or through a wire.

I've played with the network hardware and cabling, and none of it makes a difference. The machines themselves (and more properly, their OSs) are having problems seeing each other. It doesn't matter if I put them on the same workgroup or not (which I have,) or if NetBIOS over TCP/IP is turned on (which it is). I have also tried both defining "trusted zones" and completely shutting off firewall protection for the PCs, without any change in this behavior. I have tried setting static IPs on the same address range, with no luck.

The computers/Xbox 360s are all on the same IP address range (192.168.0.x), with no IP conflicts due to static IPs being set (when setting these I put them on a range outside of the DHCP range), and all are set to subnet mask 255.255.255.0. All have the proper gateway set.

The affected PCs can ping themselves, ping the router, and ping the PC in room A (and, if it is booting to Ubuntu, the Linux laptop), but not ping each other. The PC in room A and the Linux laptop can ping each other, but cannot ping any of the affected devices on the network. I have two gaming PCs in room C which can see network games such as Sins of a Solar Empire and Neverwinter Nights 2 which each other host, but not ping each other.

(While previewing the message, I had an idea, and tried an Ubuntu Live CD on the PC in room B - sure enough, upon boot it was reachable by other PCs on the network. So the problem is Windows-specific, and definitely not hardware/location-specific)

Can anyone help me figure out why they can't ping? I can probably figure out the rest, once this basic question is resolved.

Sorry for the length of this question, but I figured I ought to be thorough. By the way, if someone has a suggestion for a forum where I can get personal help from a more targetted user base, I am happy to try that as well.

Thank you so much!

Why aren't there universal 32->64 bit driver translator/emulators?

Mokusatsu — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:37:56 -0800

Why aren't there universal 32->64 bit driver translator/emulators? 64 bit versions of Windows require 64 bit drivers for printers, scanners and other devices. Many people upgrading to a 64 bit computer have had to retire perfectly good hardware simply because of lack of 64 bit drivers.

One way around this is to set up a 32 bit guest OS in a virtual machine and then run your devices from the guest OS, i.e. you can install your printer on a VMWare (or other type) virtual machine with XP or Vista 32 bit (or perhaps a Linux distro) and transfer your files to the guest OS when you want to print them.

Clearly the virtual machine is able to pass on commands to the device either via the host OS, or bypassing it altogether. This seems to me to be a proof of concept for a universal driver translator.

My question is, would a 64 bit emulator program doing essentially the same job as the 32 bit virtual machine be possible? Basically it would be a virtual machine with a stripped down OS that does nothing more than run 32 bit drivers on a 64 bit host.

If it is possible, how come such a program hasn't been written yet?

I'd willingly pay $100 for such software instead of updating my hardware, because running a full blown 32 bit guest OS purely to scan or print things is a bit of a hassle. I'm sure thousands of people would, and the existence of such software would remove one of the major objections people have to getting a 64 bit OS.

Dual boot backup on external HDD.

kraigory — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:34:42 -0800

What's the best way to setup a 500gb external hard drive to backup windows and linux? I just got a seagate external hard drive for my laptop, which is out of hard disk room. Surprised by the $100 price tag, I splurged and got a 500gb model. So, I would like to set it up to backup my computer, as well as store files.

I dual boot ubuntu linux and windows xp. Should I make two ntfs partitions, and use windows to image backup my current hard drive? Or, should I use FAT32 and use linux to perform the backup? Would there be any complications when backing up ext3 from windows, if it's just a hard drive image? Also, I'd like to use open source programs to do this.

If I go the linux route, and format it with FAT32, are there any disadvantages, or limits on partition size?

Thanks for the help! Oh, and I use linux about 80% of the time, so It would be most handy to backup with linux, if that's the easiest solution.

This is not my beautiful OS.

tmcw — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:59:40 -0800

My fantastically unstable IBM T42 (which is on it's 3rd, soon to be 4th, life) died a little while ago, no longer booting into Ubuntu. However, it loves to boot into Windows. How do I nuke both? I'd like to run Ubuntu on this computer for another few months until it takes all of my vital data with it again. I've tried running LiveCDs to fsck the primary drive (ubuntuforums didn't care, apparently), but all of these failed. I can boot into Windows and it works fine - and I can even run some ext3 drivers/wrappers and access my linux partition from there (I have, so all of my data is now backed up). However, what I can't do is boot into any OS other than Windows. I'd like to basically wipe drive and boot partition so that I can put a new install of an OS on it - and I'm considering DBAN, although wondering if that's A) recoverable, in that the drive will still be usable B) going to fail like LiveCDs did.

Plan 2: I can get this laptop fixed under a very good warranty. Good enough that I've already gone through two hard drives and an LCD on it. However, they believe that a Windows installation is enough for any student. Not this student. So if I can just botch it up tremendously, I can get a clean slate by that method.

Thanks for any help. I'm getting a mac, and backing up my data, but to have a formerly high-end ThinkPad running XP is just a loss of potential.