Re: Can't boot from DVD

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:04:04 +0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Zen wrote:

Say you download a Linux CD you can boot pretty much any PC in the
world... and install it. Of course, that's very fine for the user, but
who take investors in consideration? How could you possibly build a
$400G market cap this way?

Not really. Microsoft Windows used to be that way too, a Windows install
disk would boot, but not install on any computer it was not customized
for unless it was a "retail" disk.

They changed it, now if the encrypted key in your BIOS does not match
the key the disk is expecting, it just becomes a 30 day free trial.

As for Linux, look up how the netbook respin of Ubuntu came about. In
the testing for release (I think it was 9.04), they found that it would
boot from the CD to do the installation, but it would not boot the
installed system (well it would boot, but drop into a useless shell) on
an ATOM and similar (PIII, many AMD, etc) processors. Then they fixed
it. Then they broke it, but the one person testing it was on vacation
for a week.

They finalized the release and the day after the guy came back and could
not boot his computer.

They decided to go ahead with the release and not tell anyone. So about
40% of the people that installed the new release could not boot their
computers after installing it.

Eventually it was fixed in the Netbook Respin, which would boot on
netbooks, but not all other processors.

Depending upon how serious your problem is, and if they feel like fixing
it, Ubuntu often has an "it sucks to be you" attitude.

For example is the problem with GNOME (the window manager which Ubuntu's
GUI is based upon) sessions and MacOS X Windows. Many people who use
both on different computers open a X Windows session to the Ubuntu
computer to access it remotely. It's much faster, cleaner and easier to
use than VNC.

Apple around the end of MacOS 10.3 or so changed X windows to use a new
keyboard interface in X-Windows. Ubuntu uses an oboslete one. They are
not compatible. There used to be a work around, but it stopped working
in 10.5.

It's an Ubuntu problem, but because they in general don't like Macs and
Apple, won't fix it.

Your choices are not to use Ubuntu (which is becomming a better one as
time goes by), not use GNOME (which makes it difficult to follow their
directions, as they are all written assuming you are), download and
install MacPorts or similar software and recompile ALL of X Windows, or
use VNC.

VNC is a poor choice unless you use Jolly's VNC client, as the built in
one does not do cut and paste properly, so can't look up a URL using
your Mac and transfer it to the Linux system for download.


Where do I find Jolly's VNC client? I'd like to give it a whirl. The VNC
client I tried before (Chicken of?) had an unfortunate clash with a
commonly used key combination on the keyboards I use.

FWIW I am currently migrating from Ubuntu and its Linux Mint derivative,
largely down to the fact I couldn't get the display working properly on a
couple of old Pentium 4 systems I have inherited, but that was the straw
that broke the camel's back.

I installed Linux Mint LMDE (Debian) with the XFCE* window manager and it
runs nicely on these old systems. I am gradually moving my virtual Linux
instances to that as well, for consistency.

I thought one of the selling points of Linux was that it can be used to
utilise old hardware, but Ubuntu really bitches when it finds that up to
date video hardware isn't present.

* XFCE was Linus Torvald's choice when he rejected GNOME, and that gave
me some confidence it would be a working solution.

--
Paul Sture
.

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