What the Alternative OS Community Needs

[TrivialSolutions]

There are two tools we really need. If you know of freeware versions of either, let me know.

1) Partition Magic -- a tool to modify a hard drive's partitions. Sadly, most PC's come with restore disks and not Windows disks, so an average person cannot repartition. You guys are probably targeting people's old computers, but my OS is for an average user's best computers. I think we'll all do a lot better if it is not assumed our OS's are for pathetic old hardware. We will never do very well until we change that. I want them to dual boot on their best computer. You guys who run bochs or qemu are at a disadvantage -- you're as though you're a generation out of date. How do you hope to do anything competative on old computers?

People who can install linux can probably manage to repartition, but not dumber users. We need more of the general public knowlegable. This also helps us win the battle against moves by computer manufactures which are hostile.

A simple alternative to repartitioning is to get them to take an old drive from an old computer and use two hard drives. That's what I have on one of my computers.

My OS is 640x480 for a reason. It doesn't have graphics hardware acceleration and it's simply too slow with higher resolutions. Bochs or QEMU are idiotic for me! If I thought it would run 1600x1200 resolution, I would have done VESA modes! You're running it in a window of a higher resolution! Morons! I would have done higher resolution if that worked!

2) ISO9660 CD-ROM burning software. MagicISO is good but it's not free. Linux supports ISO files. Roxie comes on some computers. LoseThos, my operating system can burn ISO's. The general public with Window's machines, however, probably does not have ISO file burning software.

[JackScott]

For #2, my solution is ISO Recorder (http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm). Really simple, works a treat. Doesn't even take up space in my Start menu.

[AJ]

Hi,

People who can install linux can probably manage to repartition, but not dumber users. We need more of the general public knowlegable. This also helps us win the battle against moves by computer manufactures which are hostile.

I think you have hit on one of the solutions - making the public more knowlegable. The alternative is to make OS installers more user friendly. Most current desktop Linux distro's (over the past couple of years) and Windows versions have fairly easy to use installers for the average user as long as they are the only OS. The user-friendliness needs to be extended to the case when you are installing multiple operating systems alongside each other. More difficult, because the installing OS cannot assume the amount of drive space the end user wants, but it should be possible to come up with some default "High", "Medium", "Low" and "Custom" options.

A simple alternative to repartitioning is to get them to take an old drive from an old computer and use two hard drives. That's what I have on one of my computers.

Would a user who cannot repartition consider this simple?

My OS is 640x480 for a reason. It doesn't have graphics hardware acceleration and it's simply too slow with higher resolutions. Bochs or QEMU are idiotic for me! If I thought it would run 1600x1200 resolution, I would have done VESA modes! You're running it in a window of a higher resolution! Morons! I would have done higher resolution if that worked!

I'm not too sure what the point of this rant is - it doesn't seem to link in with point 1 or 2. Although VESA in higher resolutions may be slow, there are common optimisations, such as only invalidating the required area of the screen, using extended registers and so on.

2) ISO9660 CD-ROM burning software. MagicISO is good but it's not free. Linux supports ISO files. Roxie comes on some computers. LoseThos, my operating system can burn ISO's. The general public with Window's machines, however, probably does not have ISO file burning software.

I think this is already changing. Looking at Windows PC's, the vast majority of XP+ machines seem to have come bundled with something like Ahead Nero, as to retail boxed DVD recorders. Windows 7 finally knows what to do with ISO's.

Sorry for the Windows slant, but that's what I (and most other "dumb users" ) are most familiar with.

Cheers,
Adam

[Solar]

1) gparted LiveCD.

2) It has been years since I've last seen a computer shipped without either a DVD-R or CD-R installed. I've never seen a computer shipped with a DVD-R or CD-R that doesn't come with bundled writer software. I haven't seen a writer software that cannot handle ISO files.

[TrivialSolutions]

Thanks for the tip on ISORecorder.

Invalidating a rectangle is counter-productive in the worst case -- 60Hz full screen changes.

My operating system has no networking. Browsing web pages probably benefits from invalidating rectangles, but full-screen video games do not benefit.


That's good news about ISO's. One huge problem for me and many people is trying to get understanding of what the state of affairs is. The unknown is a boggieman. Recently, someone was worried about IO APIC relocation. Yeah, it's possible BIOS' might relocate it... but do they? I sometimes make gambles. Once in a while on this site, I think people go to extremes on paranoia. I guess I'm wrong on ISO burning being a problem.

[gravaera]

I'm not sure what that weird paragraph was about, but I was going to come and mirror Solar with the GParted. It is purely user friendly. It has a nice GUI and whatnot, and only requires you to have libuuid.so on your install CD, or your OS. Pretty lightweight for a program which can grow, shrink, edit, and modify EXT, Reiser, NTFS and many other FS partitions pretty efficiently.

[AJ]

Hi,

Thank you to the few people who have reported TrivialSolutions. They were more observant than me, spotting that TrivialSolutions is indeed LoseThos who got permbanned a while back. The first reporter even had to jog my memory by pointing out the reason for the original ban...

Thanks again and please all continue to use the report button as you are - it's making it much easier to spot those posts that need action.

Cheers,
Adam