[aklug] Re: Wife's hard drive is failing

On 11/13/2012 09:31 AM, David Prentice wrote:
> I don't think I can apply that logic to her Windows box, because I'm
> not certain that I can find all of the license codes for her
> commercial software packages and I really don't want to buy them all
> over again OR reopen the can of worms about how LibreOffice is "just
> as good" as MS Office. I stopped trying to fight that fight with her.
>

This is the original reason I left Windows and gave Gnu/Linux a try. Had
some systems with hardware issues, and needed to reinstall the OS a few
times within several days. Got sick of calling up MS every time to beg
them to activate my new installation. Was curious what it would be like
to have the freedom to just install software whenever the heck I felt
like it.

> Here's my plans. Shoot holes in them, feel free to suggest alternates:
> Plan A: Maybe this box's RAID thing works spiffy. Won't know till I
> try it. Slap in the new drive, let it get mirrored automagically, and
> then after waiting the HOURS AND HOURS that it will take to mirror
> 350gb of data my wife should be back online with nothing but a cable
> swap and a reboot.

If This is RAIDXpert we're talking about, there's an entire user manual
on the Net.

http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/AMD_RAIDXpert_User_v2.1.pdf

According to said document, there is a pretty fancy Web interface
provided from localhost. (See chapter 1). If you actually care what this
RAID system can and can't do you might want to start there, instead of
making assumptions.

Also, on my mdad managed RAID1 system, it only takes about 1 hour to
sync a 500G drive, not several hours.

> Plan B: The box's RAID thing is worthless. AMD RaidX? Bah humbug! I'll
> just use good old fashioned 'dd' to do the work. Boot a linux stick,
> drop to command line, and dd it over. Everything should be that
> simple.
>
> If I dd it, what do I have to do to make the new drive bootable and
> make sure that Win7 doesn't throw some juvenile hissy-fit about being
> relocated? Don't I have to worry about drive geometry when I use dd to
> mirror a partition like this?
>
> Plan C: new drive, linux install, Wine & Virtualbox.
>
> Trying to figure out just EXACTLY what it is that everyone uses on
> this computer that depends on Windows, that cannot be done from a
> linux host with either Wine or a Windows virtual guest. I'm really
> struggling to figure that one out. Kids play Minecraft. Minecraft is
> solid on Linux. LibreOffice is great. Facebook games don't care what
> OS you're running, as far as I can tell. Kids used to be really into
> playing Spore, but I understand that runs fine on Wine.
>
> So I'm probably overthinking this. Hard drive failing? Not a problem:
> migrate to linux, and you /were/ doing regular backups to my server?
> Right? RIGHT? Yeah, I didn't think so. Cash money says that there is a
> ton of schoolwork from the kids saved directly to the hard drive.
> Despite my admonitions to always backup, save directly to the server,
> or at least just drop your work into the dropbox folder - or do all
> three.

These days, I'm a hard line purist. I'd say, if you've got the
influence, throw Windows and all that Windows-****ware out the second
story window and get yourself a real operating system and free software.
Just boot into a rescue disk and copy all the files from the main user
accounts onto a USB drive or whatever, that should get all the homework,
and any pictures, videos, and such like, unless your kids have went to
the extra trouble to save files to some weird spot on the drove.

If you can't think of specific you need that is Windows only, then a
Gnu/Linux distro will provide everything you need in some replacement or
other. Libreoffice and other software are handling just about every file
format you've ever heard about these days. IceTea + Firefox works great
for Java programs and Java applets now. The only place where FOSS is
really deficient is 3D graphics drivers (for some chips) and Flash,
though you can get proprietary drivers and flash installation if you
aren't as principled as I am. Personally, I've gone without Flash for
years now, and did just fine. I use youtube-dl and vlc to get those
older YouTube videos that haven't yet been converted over to WebM.

Now, a separate question is whether or not your family will let you get
away with it. I've had mixed success with my own family. My brother runs
Ubuntu. (He uses Ubuntu because it is easy for his wife to use.) My dad
doesn't do anything on his laptop but watch DVDs and browse the Web, but
he won't convert because he has convinced himself that Linux is only for
gurus. My mom and sister will never convert because they would rather
depend on Windows forever than go two hours without access to Webkinz,
Lego Batman, or printer support. Software freedom, system control,
privacy issues, reliability... these arguments don't even phase them.

-- 
frigidcode.com

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