True enough (I never actually used IDE until the CD-ROM manufacturers started dropping their SCSI products). Wasn't as easy in some cases though - do you need an HD68, HD50, VHDCI, or a DB25 connector? Passive or active, or maybe HVD or LVD/SE?
Jesus fucking Christ. You still think your approach was the right one?
Everybody was telling you to do exactly the right thing - boot from a CD that would allow you to overwrite the bootloader with something that would work - and you just kept whining about how you didn't have anywhere to burn a CD. Perhaps you need a nanny to spoon-feed you everything, but at least make an effort to listen to the people who are attempting to help you.
GRUB does not explicitly need to know what version of Windows you are using.
However, at that point you were saying that all you wanted was a way to recover the bootloader. If that was the case, then the version of Windows you had previously been running was a relevant piece of information.
BTW, did you ever stop to consider that the cause of your problem was that you chose to install GRUB on the wrong drive? Maybe you missed the part in the installation instructions where it told you to choose the appropriate drive to install GRUB onto, instead of just randomly guessing as you appear to have done.
The clock slowdown sounds vaguely like it might be the result of power management. Try switching off as much of the power management settings under Linux and/or the BIOS as you can and see if it makes a difference.
If you need some more details, try googling for terms like "Linux APM ACPI power management".
I think you may have a point. One difference that I find now in comparison to ten years ago is that at the time, Linux drivers either existed for a particular piece of hardware and were rock solid, or didn't exist at all. Now, there's many different drivers floating around (built-in, manufacturer-developed, Windows drivers with wrappers, etc.), but it's difficult to find a particular combination of hardware that has decent (free) drivers for everything.
Since GRUB was apparently having difficulty in stage 1.5 (where it tries to read from the disk), it's possible that it was looking for the bootloader in the wrong place (since you had three hard drives, a fact which you failed to mention until halfway through). The location of the bootloader would be affected by the Windows version. Depending on whether you're running Windows 95/98/Me or Windows NT/2000/XP, the bootloaders that are installed are completely different.
Now will you shut the fuck up, you loudmouthed waste of oxygen?
Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?
on
30 Days With Ubuntu Linux
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Whether you've written Linux device drivers, met people who have written them, or sent spam to a guy who knew somebody who met Linus, is not relevant.
From what little information you saw fit to provide, most of your issues (Broadcom wireless, Intel wireless, NVidia/ATI video card?) seem to be with binary drivers. In that case, talking to the manufacturer is the ONLY way you are going to get a stable system. Some people may be able to provide ad-hoc workarounds, but only the manufacturer can solve the cause.
(I also found it interesting that you gave the level of Indic language support as proof of the superiority of Windows, when it's apparent from the site you linked to that Windows' out-of-the-box Indic support is fairly sucky.)
Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?
on
30 Days With Ubuntu Linux
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
And oh, treating someone complaining about the problems like an idiot is a great way to get things done.
Treating someone trying to help you like your personal support bitch is also a great way to get things done.
Why is "complain to the manufacturers" such a bad answer? It is the ONLY way that device drivers in Linux will improve in anything other than incremental fashion.
And BTW, if by saying "I've given talks on writing Linux device drivers", you actually mean "I've ripped off other people's work to make it look like I know something about writing Linux device drivers", then perhaps you shouldn't bring it up.
OK, let's see how you acted on the Ubuntu free support forums:
Before you make this even more frustrating for me:
Nice way to ask for help. Sure makes me feel like giving you a hand (or maybe a boot up the ass). Mm-hmm.
I should never have believed all that crap about "providing access to all".
Useful information? Missing. Needless slagging off of OS you're purportedly trying to convert to? Check.
Thanks for any assistance you can provide in helping undo the damage Ubuntu has done.
I guess there wasn't quite enough needless slagging off yet.
I thought -- probably because of all the liberation/openness rhetoric of Ubuntu -- I wouldn't need Microsoft software to get Ubuntu to work.
And I guess he thought you were actually interested in recovering your PC instead of trolling the forums.
So in other words, you didn't read my first post, in which I said that the disc is fine and I've tried reinstalling multiple times. This just makes my day.
If this is how you act towards people you've never met who are trying to help you, I'd hate to work with you.
Don't see what difference that makes, given as I can't even get into Windows, and the problem is obviously due to GRUB. Seems like a fishing expedition there.
How about just giving him the fucking information he asked for? Too much to ask for some people, I guess...
Just yesterday I thought I knew what chutzpah was. "Starting on the right foot" would include "not getting locked out of my computer because I installed a OS billed as 'Linux for Human Beings' ". "Starting on the right foot" would include finding instructions that answer the frequently asked question of "how do I set up a new partition and install to that partition?". "Starting on the right foot" would include an Ubuntu forum that doesn't take me a week of trying to access from different computers and connections before it consistently loads. Stop making excuses. So I wouldn't answer what Windows version it is. Can anyone think of any reason why one version of Windows over another would cause GRUB error 25? No? Okay then. The problem is not the devices, or the Windows version, or getting the latest install CD, or scratches on the install CD. The problem is the boot loader. The problem has already been diagnosed. You just want to chase all these wild geese because you don't want to admit that maybe this "access for all" OS has a serious problem. Would somebody just tell me how to edit, modify, fix, whatever, the boot loader? That's all. It should be really simple, given the rigorous testing that they would put a software capable of locking you out of your computer through.
Sheesh. You actually expected that to make people want to help you more than they were already?
For one, getting X to work at a good resolution was hard (I've a widescreen notebook). In fact, until a recent upgrade, I could only get it to work at a much lower resolution.
Please, go and bitch at the manufacturers. They are the only ones with the specs. Without the specs, all the driver developer can do is guess.
Secondly, getting the WiFi to work wasn't a cakewalk, either.
And during the whole messing around with install process, I had to restart the system at least a few times.
Let's be clear on a couple of things - upgrading a kernel will require a reboot. Upgrading X will require a restart of X. What can be avoided under Linux is the situation where you upgrade one driver, reboot, upgrade another driver, reboot, ad infinitum.
Now, I've also had problems with the GUI in getting things done - sure, I finally end up resorting to opening a terminal and doing what I wanted, which defeats the purpose, I think.
Specifics?
And oh, I've had hell trying to get files on a USB thumb drive -- for whatever reason, the files are simply not accessible from a Windows box.
That's the fault of Linux? Did you format the drive correctly? Try mounting it on a different Windows box?
And I still can't get my printer and scanner to play nicely with Linux.
Again, please bitch to the manufacturers.
Half the time, the box ends going bonkers.
Details?
Its support for other things (e.g. Indic language support, accessibility etc.) is also nowhere near Windows.
Really? The why do I still have to buy two separate versions of Windows if I want both English and Japanese versions? Why do some apps on Windows insist that they cannot be installed on anything except {English|Japanese} Windows? You can switch Ubuntu between dozens of languages in minutes.
And the reason it is hell to install is because you have to go hunting for drivers, appropriate fixes etc.
And you don't have to do the same thing with Windows? Then why do I have to go trawling through half a dozen websites looking for the right drivers for my chipset/network card/sound card? All those come with the default distribution in Linux.
Linux is only free if your time is not money - and for some of us, our time is money.
Sounds like you would indeed be better off giving more of your money to Bill Gates. I'm sure he has a good use for it.
Putting your own computer together these days with all the options, choices to make, etc. is getting harder than it was 10 years ago.
I call bullshit on that one (and yes, I was putting together my own PCs ten years ago).
Then: A dozen different video card manufacturers, twice that many chipsets, equal variety of drivers. Now: Two major manufacturers, two unified drivers.
Then: IDE=slow. Master? Slave? Cable? WTF is this? Now: SATA - plug and go.
Then: Set up your modem to connect to your ISP and hope you don't get any incoming calls. Firewall? What's that? Now: ADSL. Wireless routers. Built-in firewalls.
Then: Scanner? SCSI (and don't forget your terminators). Printer? Parallel. Video in? Forget it. Now: USB and Firewire.
Then: Steel case weighing 20kg, built out of razor blades. Now: Complete kit with rounded internal edges, fans in the box, you name it.
Notes in Hell on Earth. It is fire and brimstone in a shrink-wrapped package, waiting to condemn the forsaken soul saddled with the thankless task of trying to tame the beast to an eternity of purgatory.
Actually, if you look under your ~/.wine/drive_c/ directory, you'll see that it has created a debian/ directory and placed some grub-related files under there, one of which is named "grldr". I didn't try starting that one under Wine, but I wonder how far it would have got...
I just tried it (clicking on the link from Ubuntu and saying yes when it asked if I wanted to run the.exe under Wine).
It gets as far as the download stage, but partway through pops up a window with the message "Error: c:\boot.ini not found. Your version of Windows might be too old, or damaged."
The certificates need to be signed by the appropriate government authority, so the only one who can do anything about this problem is the South Korean government.
A lot of the recent variants of the Intel EE gigabit cards won't run in gigabit mode under Linux. I've also got one model that refuses to reconnect after a reboot unless the machine is shut down and the power pulled (as in physically removed).
This is an "emperor with no clothes" thing - if you can't tell the difference, you must not be an experienced gamer. Since I'm an experienced gamer, I can tell the difference. HORSE PUCKY, boy!
Slashdot Mirror
True enough (I never actually used IDE until the CD-ROM manufacturers started dropping their SCSI products).
Wasn't as easy in some cases though - do you need an HD68, HD50, VHDCI, or a DB25 connector? Passive or active, or maybe HVD or LVD/SE?
Jesus fucking Christ. You still think your approach was the right one?
Everybody was telling you to do exactly the right thing - boot from a CD that would allow you to overwrite the bootloader with something that would work - and you just kept whining about how you didn't have anywhere to burn a CD.
Perhaps you need a nanny to spoon-feed you everything, but at least make an effort to listen to the people who are attempting to help you.
So which hard drive was it? Did you even bother checking?
And if you're so clear on every possible cause of the problem, why were you unable to fix it yourself?
The MAIN HD where your Windows bootloader was installed? Or some other MAIN HD that everybody trying to help you is magically supposed to know about?
GRUB does not explicitly need to know what version of Windows you are using.
However, at that point you were saying that all you wanted was a way to recover the bootloader. If that was the case, then the version of Windows you had previously been running was a relevant piece of information.
BTW, did you ever stop to consider that the cause of your problem was that you chose to install GRUB on the wrong drive?
Maybe you missed the part in the installation instructions where it told you to choose the appropriate drive to install GRUB onto, instead of just randomly guessing as you appear to have done.
The clock slowdown sounds vaguely like it might be the result of power management.
Try switching off as much of the power management settings under Linux and/or the BIOS as you can and see if it makes a difference.
If you need some more details, try googling for terms like "Linux APM ACPI power management".
I think you may have a point. One difference that I find now in comparison to ten years ago is that at the time, Linux drivers either existed for a particular piece of hardware and were rock solid, or didn't exist at all. Now, there's many different drivers floating around (built-in, manufacturer-developed, Windows drivers with wrappers, etc.), but it's difficult to find a particular combination of hardware that has decent (free) drivers for everything.
Since GRUB was apparently having difficulty in stage 1.5 (where it tries to read from the disk), it's possible that it was looking for the bootloader in the wrong place (since you had three hard drives, a fact which you failed to mention until halfway through). The location of the bootloader would be affected by the Windows version. Depending on whether you're running Windows 95/98/Me or Windows NT/2000/XP, the bootloaders that are installed are completely different.
Now will you shut the fuck up, you loudmouthed waste of oxygen?
Whether you've written Linux device drivers, met people who have written them, or sent spam to a guy who knew somebody who met Linus, is not relevant.
From what little information you saw fit to provide, most of your issues (Broadcom wireless, Intel wireless, NVidia/ATI video card?) seem to be with binary drivers.
In that case, talking to the manufacturer is the ONLY way you are going to get a stable system. Some people may be able to provide ad-hoc workarounds, but only the manufacturer can solve the cause.
(I also found it interesting that you gave the level of Indic language support as proof of the superiority of Windows, when it's apparent from the site you linked to that Windows' out-of-the-box Indic support is fairly sucky.)
And oh, treating someone complaining about the problems like an idiot is a great way to get things done.
Treating someone trying to help you like your personal support bitch is also a great way to get things done.
Why is "complain to the manufacturers" such a bad answer? It is the ONLY way that device drivers in Linux will improve in anything other than incremental fashion.
And BTW, if by saying "I've given talks on writing Linux device drivers", you actually mean "I've ripped off other people's work to make it look like I know something about writing Linux device drivers", then perhaps you shouldn't bring it up.
OK, let's see how you acted on the Ubuntu free support forums:
Before you make this even more frustrating for me:
Nice way to ask for help. Sure makes me feel like giving you a hand (or maybe a boot up the ass). Mm-hmm.
I should never have believed all that crap about "providing access to all".
Useful information? Missing. Needless slagging off of OS you're purportedly trying to convert to? Check.
Thanks for any assistance you can provide in helping undo the damage Ubuntu has done.
I guess there wasn't quite enough needless slagging off yet.
I thought -- probably because of all the liberation/openness rhetoric of Ubuntu -- I wouldn't need Microsoft software to get Ubuntu to work.
And I guess he thought you were actually interested in recovering your PC instead of trolling the forums.
So in other words, you didn't read my first post, in which I said that the disc is fine and I've tried reinstalling multiple times. This just makes my day.
If this is how you act towards people you've never met who are trying to help you, I'd hate to work with you.
Don't see what difference that makes, given as I can't even get into Windows, and the problem is obviously due to GRUB. Seems like a fishing expedition there.
How about just giving him the fucking information he asked for? Too much to ask for some people, I guess...
Just yesterday I thought I knew what chutzpah was.
"Starting on the right foot" would include "not getting locked out of my computer because I installed a OS billed as 'Linux for Human Beings' ". "Starting on the right foot" would include finding instructions that answer the frequently asked question of "how do I set up a new partition and install to that partition?". "Starting on the right foot" would include an Ubuntu forum that doesn't take me a week of trying to access from different computers and connections before it consistently loads.
Stop making excuses. So I wouldn't answer what Windows version it is. Can anyone think of any reason why one version of Windows over another would cause GRUB error 25? No? Okay then.
The problem is not the devices, or the Windows version, or getting the latest install CD, or scratches on the install CD. The problem is the boot loader. The problem has already been diagnosed. You just want to chase all these wild geese because you don't want to admit that maybe this "access for all" OS has a serious problem.
Would somebody just tell me how to edit, modify, fix, whatever, the boot loader? That's all. It should be really simple, given the rigorous testing that they would put a software capable of locking you out of your computer through.
Sheesh. You actually expected that to make people want to help you more than they were already?
Let's take your points one at a time.
For one, getting X to work at a good resolution was hard (I've a widescreen notebook). In fact, until a recent upgrade, I could only get it to work at a much lower resolution.
Please, go and bitch at the manufacturers. They are the only ones with the specs. Without the specs, all the driver developer can do is guess.
Secondly, getting the WiFi to work wasn't a cakewalk, either.
Details? Driver problems, installation problems, configuration problems, connectivity problems?
And during the whole messing around with install process, I had to restart the system at least a few times.
Let's be clear on a couple of things - upgrading a kernel will require a reboot. Upgrading X will require a restart of X. What can be avoided under Linux is the situation where you upgrade one driver, reboot, upgrade another driver, reboot, ad infinitum.
Now, I've also had problems with the GUI in getting things done - sure, I finally end up resorting to opening a terminal and doing what I wanted, which defeats the purpose, I think.
Specifics?
And oh, I've had hell trying to get files on a USB thumb drive -- for whatever reason, the files are simply not accessible from a Windows box.
That's the fault of Linux? Did you format the drive correctly? Try mounting it on a different Windows box?
And I still can't get my printer and scanner to play nicely with Linux.
Again, please bitch to the manufacturers.
Half the time, the box ends going bonkers.
Details?
Its support for other things (e.g. Indic language support, accessibility etc.) is also nowhere near Windows.
Really? The why do I still have to buy two separate versions of Windows if I want both English and Japanese versions? Why do some apps on Windows insist that they cannot be installed on anything except {English|Japanese} Windows? You can switch Ubuntu between dozens of languages in minutes.
And the reason it is hell to install is because you have to go hunting for drivers, appropriate fixes etc.
And you don't have to do the same thing with Windows? Then why do I have to go trawling through half a dozen websites looking for the right drivers for my chipset/network card/sound card? All those come with the default distribution in Linux.
Linux is only free if your time is not money - and for some of us, our time is money.
Sounds like you would indeed be better off giving more of your money to Bill Gates. I'm sure he has a good use for it.
Putting your own computer together these days with all the options, choices to make, etc. is getting harder than it was 10 years ago.
I call bullshit on that one (and yes, I was putting together my own PCs ten years ago).
Then: A dozen different video card manufacturers, twice that many chipsets, equal variety of drivers.
Now: Two major manufacturers, two unified drivers.
Then: IDE=slow. Master? Slave? Cable? WTF is this?
Now: SATA - plug and go.
Then: Set up your modem to connect to your ISP and hope you don't get any incoming calls. Firewall? What's that?
Now: ADSL. Wireless routers. Built-in firewalls.
Then: Scanner? SCSI (and don't forget your terminators). Printer? Parallel. Video in? Forget it.
Now: USB and Firewire.
Then: Steel case weighing 20kg, built out of razor blades.
Now: Complete kit with rounded internal edges, fans in the box, you name it.
That would be Orac. I believe the article you're looking for is this one, and the associated mod page is this one.
Really? I bought a couple of Unicomp model Ms in '98 or so, and they have the two-piece keys and the heavier steel plate.
No.
Notes in Hell on Earth. It is fire and brimstone in a shrink-wrapped package, waiting to condemn the forsaken soul saddled with the thankless task of trying to tame the beast to an eternity of purgatory.
Really.
More like "fixes features (to not work) and adds defects".
Face it - with a few exceptions, most manufacturer-written drivers are total shite.
...darken as thousands of crack Microsoft lawyers parachute down into the city in search of the terrorist, erm, defendant...
Actually, if you look under your ~/.wine/drive_c/ directory, you'll see that it has created a debian/ directory and placed some grub-related files under there, one of which is named "grldr". I didn't try starting that one under Wine, but I wonder how far it would have got...
I just tried it (clicking on the link from Ubuntu and saying yes when it asked if I wanted to run the .exe under Wine).
It gets as far as the download stage, but partway through pops up a window with the message "Error: c:\boot.ini not found. Your version of Windows might be too old, or damaged."
Now to file a bug report with the Wine team...
The certificates need to be signed by the appropriate government authority, so the only one who can do anything about this problem is the South Korean government.
They didn't "capture" it. It was brought to the aquarium by a fisherman who'd pulled it up in a net and wasn't sure what it was.
A lot of the recent variants of the Intel EE gigabit cards won't run in gigabit mode under Linux.
I've also got one model that refuses to reconnect after a reboot unless the machine is shut down and the power pulled (as in physically removed).
This is an "emperor with no clothes" thing - if you can't tell the difference, you must not be an experienced gamer. Since I'm an experienced gamer, I can tell the difference. HORSE PUCKY, boy!
Yes, we know this because vinyl records of bad 70s disco music have been around for more than 200 years.