on the subject of antivirus, am i correct in my assumption that..

unlike in windows xp, where there is one account- me.. i should with linux instead create one master account and one non master account. and I should primarily use the non master??? with the term "root" in this case being used as far as admin rights and such?

i386 is normally what you want. Unless you have a good reason to do so, x86_64 which is 64 bit should not be used, because it causes problems. PPC is for old Macs.

I'm not familiar with programming sites. I don't recommend Fedora to newbies. I recommend: Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, Mandriva, Mint. They all come with Live CD versions so you can try before you buy. You might also install Virtualbox or VMWare in Windows, then install Linux in there, so that way you don't mess with your hard drive.

Another option is Wubi: http://wubi-installer.org/

That way you can install Ubuntu without messing with your Windows partitions at all.

The above mentioned distros provide excellent documentation and forums that will help new Linux users. If that's not enough I recommend going to the library and picking up an introductory Linux book. Most of Linux is not too complicated, so it's best to learn by doing.

That sounds about right. That way even if you downloaded something malicious like spyware it could not do much to your system.

and WUbi wont mess with the fact that im using windows xp- meaning i can turn off, turn on, and select which OS right?

Just FYI, here's a good Linux tutorial/howto manual: http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
Given that Linux is free, just try it (inc the Open Office stuff) and see if it does what you need.

okay, thanks for the guide..

whats holding me back is i dont have the windows cd with me, and the school doesnt do much with linux as far as network access... but we shall see.. gonna play around with my harddrives.

You will choose at boot time which OS you want, Ubuntu or Windows.

From the link I gave above:

"Wubi is Safe

It does not require you to modify the partitions of your PC, or to use a different bootloader.

Wubi is Simple

Just run the installer, no need to burn a CD.

Wubi is Discrete

Wubi keeps most of the files in one folder, and If you do not like, you can simply uninstall it."

The purpose of Wubi is to allow a hard drive install without risking damaging your existing Windows installation or screwing with your bootloader. If you don't like it you just uninstall it from Add/Remove Programs in Windows. Many Windows users don't like to play with partitioning and bootloaders. The nice thing about Wubi is that you don't have to.

It's also different from Virtualbox or VMWare in that it is a true hard drive installation and thus much faster.

cool, now is it possible to partition a Hard drive while im logged in or???

(and wubi wont seem to work- it cant connect, ive cleared it through my firewalls and such, probably on school server security.) I am gonna look up the other stuff you mentioned to see if its there.. I simply ask to make sure im reading things correctly..

I'd summarize my entire viewpoint on this as follows:

(1) If you are constantly seeing a "blue screen of death" on Windows, then you are either doing something wrong or playing Worlds of Warcraft ... in other words, a highly intensive game that is very likely to expose bugs in any system. Make very sure that you keep your Windows software scrupulously up-to-date, and realize that you are "on the bleeding edge." Expect to bleed a little. Sorry.

(2) If you have a "killer app" that runs well on Windows, then realize that your need to run that one app might be sufficient reason for you to continue to use Windows.

(2a) But... you can use more than one system!

(2b) In fact, it's smartest to use "more than one system," because it's much easier to log on to the Internet and find the answer to a problem when at-least one of your computers are working. Computer hardware is quite-frankly cheap these days: plan accordingly. "Dual-booting sux, and why-bother."

Welcome..

If you were thinking you'd like to move XP over to the SATA drive for the better response time for gaming then you could use, <my fav for years> Semantec's Ghost program. Ghost your current XP partion to the SATA drive.

First, <assumptions>

120gig XP drive is C:/
CD/DVD drive is D:/
250gig SATA drive is E:/ nothing on this drive... if there is create a partition big enough to hold your XP partition with breathing space. Ghost to that new partiton.

Now that you have a perfect copy both on c:/ and e:/, shutdown, unplug power supply, and disconnect your IDE drive (C:/). Reboot. XP should now automatically pick up your SATA drive as C:/ and as active. If this Fails for some reason which doesn't come to mind just now, you still have your original XP on the IDE drive which you can always reconnect.

Once you are satisfied with XP on the SATA reconnect your IDE which will now become D:/ and keep it, zip/rar it, burn it, format it, whatever.

Ghost is a great tool that will copy hard drives from it's own (Linux) operating system all bundled on a floppy disk. I've now burned mine to CD as 1.44 floppy's are getting like 5 1/4 floppy's.

last major question for now.. Im trying to install ubuntu. I change bios to boot from CD, i insert cd and boot. Ububntu boots up to the screen where it lets me choose a few options like "Check CD for errors" "Check Memory" or "Install" I cecked memory and CD, they are fine. so next time i selected Install. It begins to mount stuff, and then after a min or so, the screen goes blank, and begins to act like there is no signal (like the computer is off) but the computer is still on, the cd drive still blinks green on and off, and eventually though the whole thing just reboots. Ive checked with some of the documentation and im not finding something that addresses this issue yet. do you all have any thoughts?

office / other windows apps, I havent tried office myself, but I've been able to run the macromedia suite under linux with no apparent issues, so assume it would be the same

world of warcraft, yes it WILL run fine and is quite straightforward to set up, I've set up ubuntu/wine/wow on 3 machines now (multi-boxing ) so if you need any help start a thread in the games section or give me a shout on msn at jimmy (at) teamstag (dot) co (dot) uk

in regards to a good source of help, this site/forums are by far your best option. also check out the IRC channels they have helped me a lot

Good luck

I've not encountered this in the times I've installed Ubuntu. If you want to continue with Ubuntu, you should probably start a new thread in the Ubuntu forum here, or on the Ubuntu website. This thread is getting long and you are likely to not get noticed for a new issue given the number of posts that have already been made.

Alternatively, you might just try another distro (I know, a lot of downloading, but Mepis or Mandriva might work without problems).

It helps if you list your hardware as well, at least the video card and cpu.

Hello musacman,

I agree with you. I am now developing a NAS system which is based on Linux. It provides NFS and Samba service. And I want to find a good solution for Viruses Scan in order to prevent Windows virtus spreading from my NAS when Windows client access Samba share.

This researching work has been keeping for a week, and as the result, it seemes there're two mainly solutions about my aid.

1) Install some virus-scan softwares on NAS, just as "Avira AntiVir" which can scan CIFS viruses. However, I have to apply for a certificated license, and this software can only support Samba-3.0.23c(Higher version would encounter problem when install AVGuard, I do not fix it). Later, I see ClaimAV, and its relevant documents say it is for mail-server(sendmail..). I search in LQ, some people recommend ClaimAV. Is ClaimAV right for my NAS?

2）As googled results, Symentec and trend have already provided virus scan function in some NAS productions(Sun Storage5000, Hitachi NAS and so on). The architecture is, building another server(called Scan Engine) which is dedicated for virus scan. It can implement up to 4 Scan-Engine servers for a NAS. Yes, this solution can improve the whole system's performance, while it can be predicated in very high cost.

As known, there're always very large files(TB) stored on NAS, so I have to care the I/O rate first, which is also the customer most cared.


Dear all, I want a low-cost virus scan(only for Windows Files) solution for my NAS, would you give me any suggestion? Some comments would also be appreciated.

Regards,
Phillip

This is kind of late in the thread, but just out of curiosity why not just get a ps2 for games? Second you basically asked us to choose between linux and windows, i sincerely am not trying to be mean by any means at all, but this is a linux forum, i highly doubt anyone would tell you not to get linux. But i think sundialsvcs said it best "dual-booting sux", but on the other hand is totally up to you. What i think you should do (but that's just me) is try it out, i mean you probably used windows all your life, and obviously you don't seem to happy about it, so try linux out, see how it works, see how you like it. Because quite frankly if you install both windows and linux, guess where are you gonna spend the most time, obviously on windows because that's what you're used to, and most of the time when you're on windows you'll get to lazy to restart into linux, so you would still end up doing everything on windows So as most of these nice gentleman agree here, just make a clean linux install, and try it out, and hey i bet you'll love it. and even if run into any problems, anyone on here would be more that glad to help you out, no doubt about it.

So i wish you the best of luck, and truly sorry if by any means i offended you, wasn't my intention.