Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 January 6

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January 6

802.11g issues

Resolved

 – Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:42, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, so I just disassembled my whole laptop (there was a screw stuck in it which wouldn't allow me to remove the temporary hard drive I'd put in, grr). During the process, there were a lot of wires in various and sundry places, even not plugged into anything. For some reason, The wires were mostly coming out of the monitor. However, as they weren't connected to anything on the further end, I didn't think it was a big deal where I put them back, so I didn't keep track of the original configuration and stuck them where it looked natural.

However, upon booting my computer, my wireless connection is hideous. I have a wireless router a few feet away from me and it's one or two bars in strength. Normally it's an easy 5 at this distance. Is it possible that I somehow goofed up the wireless signal by having the monitor's wires interfere with it? Or is there maybe a low-tech antenna that I did something stupid with (like stick it below the other wires, whereas it normally should be in its own space)?

By the way, I have a Dell d620 and an integrated Intel 3945ABG WLAN. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Scratch that; all the silly wires coming out were antennae with very small metal ends which attach to WWAN/WLANs; I just reconnected and it's all good. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:42, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

HDMI Cable Prices

This 25 foot "high speed" HDMI 1.3 cable is US$ 15 [1], while this other 20 foot "ultimate high speed" HDMI 1.4 cable is US$ 250 [2].

A) Why is there such large price variation among HDMI cables of similar length? Does the more than ten-fold price increase result in a measurable increase in a cable's performance? When is the difference important from the perspective of the end-user?

B) How can an end-user determine what cable is "good enough" for a given application? I found it very confusing looking at more than an order of magnitude in price differences, and not knowing what kind of HDMI cable I ought to get. So, I bought the $15 cable to connect a computer to an HDTV and it seems to work fine. However, if the cable wasn't "good enough" what would an observer expect to see? Does a low quality cable result in subtle artifacts, or would it be a complete failure?

Many thanks for your help. Dragons flight (talk) 00:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

A) because crazy people will pay; no; never

B) the picture displays okay; buy the cheap one; it's a digital cable, so if it was genuinely defective then whole blocks would get corrupted and the failure would be very evident indeed.

87.115.79.246 (talk) 00:44, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the only way you'd notice a difference is if you got a cable that doesn't support part of the system (for instance I've seen HDMI cables that do not carry audio), or I suppose there are cables that are better shielded against interference. Usually I think you'll find the cheapest cable is just fine, though connectors can sometimes be a factor, particularly if you disconnect/reconnect them a lot. If there's a conversion taking place within the cable/adapter (not the case with HDMI) you'd want to watch out for that, too. I personally doubt I'd ever blow $250 on a cable unless I already had equipment so expensive it came with its own. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

For some reason people seem to be highly gullible when it comes to HDMI cable prices. I think they must equate "digital" with "magical". StuRat (talk) 05:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Subtle artifacts are unlikely. A year or 2 ago the HDMI standard setting people in the US were interested in receiving any (undamageD?) HDMI cable that did actually cause problems, I don't know if this offer is still valid and I'm lazy to dig it up but it gives you an idea of how common HDMI cable caused problems actually are. These people appear to sell relatively fancy (although not I guess extremely expensive) US made HDMI cables but have some useful info here on the testing [3] and appear to be somewhat honest

Now, there is always, with HDMI, the question: does it matter? This is, after all, a digital signal, and will ordinarily generate only one of three types of results: perfect performance, noticeable partial failure (manifested by "sparkly" dropouts and/or flashing/loss of sync), or total failure (manifested by complete absence of a recoverable signal, and therefore a blank screen). It is for this reason that, in addition to carrying our Belden HDMI cables, we also carry some very economical Chinese cables. Any cable which performs perfectly in a particular application is as good as any other cable which performs perfectly in that same application--but here there is a caveat, which we will pose as a question.

The rest of their website also appears to have some useful info and again from a quick glance largely free of bullshit.

I believe monoprice are a common source of HDMI cables in the US. Dealextreme and other such sites would probably be a decent source worldwide.

P.S. The HDMI cable offer is here. AVSforum itself is good place to read info on HDMI cables without bullshit (well as with most forums, some posters may speak bullshit, but there are also enough knowledgable posters who tend to call them out on it. You can also find descriptions of real problems because of HDMI cables there. They appear to usually be either drop outs, and sometimes clearly noticeable speckled pixels.

Nil Einne (talk) 09:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Mapping a peculiar keyboard key to start program

My laptop has a button which used to trigger software (Acer PowerSmart Manager) which was supposed to reduce power consumption through undisclosed methods. The program was an irritation since it overrode screen brightness settings (actually making the screen brighter than I wanted it) and could not be customised so I uninstalled it. I would like to reasign the button to opening a program called GameBooster which I can use to close down many programs at once and restart them all again at a suitable time. The problem is that I don't know a) how to find out the scan code of this peculiar key (I think it might actually simulate two or more regular keys being pressed at the same time) nor b) how to make this trigger the execution of the GameBooster program (preferably without running an additional application). Surely Windows 7 has the capacity do this built in? --89.243.132.112 (talk) 01:39, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Try AutoHotkey. 87.115.79.246 (talk) 01:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Torrent: starting impossible, downloading possible

Could it be that a firewall blocks the starting of a torrent download, but does not block the downloading of already started torrents? It seems to me that I am having this problem in an internet-café. It would made sense if the torrent client needed different ports for each action. 13:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quest09 (talk • contribs)

No, it is the same thing. You probably got some dead torrents, without peers, that won't start. Try searching for fresh torrents and test it with them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.40.250.126 (talk) 13:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't type edit summary or search or turn text blue to copy and paste

A library computer had some sort of mouse problem which I reported here because it was affecting my ability to use Wikipedia.

When I first signed on I got a message about Internet Explorer 8 which indicates that the computer probably had that.

When I would try to turn text blue to delete it or copy and paste it (for Wikipedia editing) I would get a dot in place of the cursor, with an up arrow above it and a down arrow below it. I was using the correct mouse button, so don't anyone try to tell me the mistake was mine.

When I would try to search I couldn't type anything. I also could not type an edit summary. Furthermore, I got a lot of edit conflicts on one person's talk page when I was the only one editing. I may have mistakenly clicked on "save page" when I intended to preview, because I was having trouble remembering the correct vandalism template, but that doesn't account for all the edit conflicts.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:30, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Because this is a library computer and not yours, you have no means of knowing who has been using it or if the computer/mouse/keyboard is not damaged in any way. It is obvious that whatever mouse button you clicked was registering as a middle-button click, which brings up the scroller icon that you saw. It could be that someone broke the mouse. It could be that someone thought it funny to go into the mouse settings and swap the buttons around. How can you possibly expect anyone here to know what happened? -- kainaw™ 19:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

There are mouse settings that can be changed? You seem to know a lot about this. Also, this doesn't explain why the edit summary couldn't be typed or the search box couldn't be used.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

File manager

On Windows 7, what is the best file manager for dealing with directories containing 10,000+ files? Windows Explorer is awful and usually crashes taking the whole system down with it. 7zip file manager has been a lot better but it too sometimes crashes, although without the system-wide disruption Windows Explorer causes. Any others? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

What are you trying to do with those directories and files? -- kainaw™ 19:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Browse them, move them, copy them, sort them by date, name, type etc. Everything you'd do with a typical file manager and a directory, except on a bigger scale. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there are Windows Explorer clones that can manage it, but it's even more likely, IMO, that most orthodox file managers would have no trouble with that many files. If you get down to a command prompt you'd have even less trouble. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

AOL mail ad problem with Firefox

I've experienced this before. For some insane reason if I decide to use an AOL mail to save the information I am collecting from various web sites, an ad will decide to create havoc with the computer even though I am not even on the page. Usually this happens with Internet Explorer but today it was with Mozilla Firefox. I was actually on a mail service other than AOL but it uses the same sign-in system and the email format is similar.

The computer froze and before pretty much everything disappeared I saw a "Waiting for xxx.xx.xx.xx message at the bottom of the screen. Normally there is a web site, but in this case there was an IP starting with 205. The screen went white except for a blue border and a wider a blue line at the top with the Firefox logo, the name of the email web site, and the minimize and maximize buttons and the red X. I got the message "Not responding" when I tried to do anything. Then the web site I was actually on when the other page misbehaved had the same look on its screen. At one point even the name of the site disappeared. The taskbar buttons would disappear and reappear, and sometimes there was more than one for each site. Eventually everything came back. I don't understand what happened or how to stop it.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:39, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

At a guess, it sounds to me like an advert using Flash got stuck trying to download something from 205.xx.xx.xx. I'm sure there is a flash ad blocker you can get as a plugin for Firefox. Astronaut (talk) 21:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Necessity of Antivirus Software

My PC came with 3 free months subscription to BulGuard antivirus software which expired some time ago. Am I running much of a risk by not having regularly updated antivirus software on my machine? I run Windows 7 and install all the security updates. Thanks Stanstaple (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

If you have ALL of the security updates, you have Microsoft Security Essentials. However, you need to understand that even with every anti-virus program known to man, you are only protected against virus activity that is known. Further, you are not protected against user ignorance/stupidity. If you download something off the Internet, through email, through a website, through P2P, etc... you are opening up the possibility of a virus or malware problem. Even if the file comes from a "friend", you don't know if your friend already has a virus/malware problem. In the end, using a networked computer means that you are accepting a risk of virus/malware problems. By choosing the most popular operating system, you increase that risk significantly. -- kainaw™ 19:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I added the caveat "networked computer", but as has been recently demonstrated in Iran, even a computer system that is completely removed from the Internet can fall victim to an Internet-based virus. -- kainaw™ 19:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. You can easily install a good-quality and free anti-virus, such as Avast!. Uninstal "Bulguard" first. There is List of antivirus software but I use Avast! and would recommend it. 92.24.188.182 (talk) 20:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

You don't need anti-virus software if you keep your computer up to date and avoid running programs and opening documents from people you don't trust. I don't use an anti-virus program and I haven't gotten a virus in three years. I'm running Windows XP. Windows 7 is more secure against attack than Windows XP. Just make sure Windows (and Adobe Reader, Flash Player, Java, etc.) are updating themselves automatically.

However, if you (or someone else who uses your computer) is easily tricked into installing viruses or opening malicious PDFs (or Word documents) in your e-mail, then consider getting a paid anti-virus program like Kaspersky or BitDefender. Free anti-virus programs are not as good at detecting virii as paid programs are.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Really? You mean the worst ever paid program is better than the very best free program? 92.24.188.182 (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

This chart should answer your question. In short, some paid anti-virus programs are worse than some free ones, but, in general, you get what you pay for. For more information, I'd click on "Test Report" under each product, and then click on "Specs." I generally recommend Kaspersky to people who ask, since it has good detection abilities and doesn't slow down your computer as much as Norton. It costs about $40 if you buy a single-user license: [4].--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:39, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

But PC World (either the magazine or the shop chain) make thweir money through selling stuff, so they'd be disinclined to recommend something that's free. In addition, Norton has or at least had a bad reputation for interfering with your computer and leaving a lot of stuff behind after not uninstalling properly. Besides which, that appears to be just the subjective opinion of one person rather than being ranked on objective criteria. 92.24.188.63 (talk) 00:06, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

It isn't subjective. If you click on "Test Report" under each product, and then click on "Specs" it should give the detection ratio of each product. I don't recommend Norton for the reason you mention and because it slows down your computer, as I said earlier. I mentioned all of this in my last post.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 00:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The free anti-virus is still near the top of the list, so its up to the OP to decide if they want a possibly (although I'm sceptical) slightly better detection rate according to your link in return for paying money. They would undoubtedly be better than not using an anti-virus. I've used Avast! after switching from AVG, and I've never had problems with either of them, and would recommend them. 92.24.188.63 (talk) 00:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I've used AVG and Avast, too. When I worked as a computer repairman, I saw many computers that were infected with viruses that they missed. Their real-time protection was running, but it just didn't see the viruses. I got a lot more calls from customers with those programs installed than other anti-virus programs.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 10:47, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

You got more calls as these programs are the most popular, used by the most people. 92.24.178.121 (talk) 11:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I have to disagree with Best Dog Ever over choice of Antivirus with this link which says that Norton loads up faster than Kaspersky. And perhaps instead of Antivirus, a real-time security package may be better instead. General Rommel (talk) 01:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Kaspersky, according to the tests by PC World, scans files faster than Norton. So, if you have real-time protection turned on, that means that Norton will take longer to scan items as you open them up, thus, the general performance of your computer will take a hit using Norton vs. Kaspersky. I also like how you can turn Kaspersky off by simply right-clicking on the icon in the system tray and selecting "Exit." Norton is extremely difficult to turn off completely. I've had problems uninstalling Norton, as well. I've had it prevent computers from performing system restores. I've seen corrupt Norton installations slow a computer down by a factor of 10 or more. I don't like it. But if it works well for you, consider yourself lucky and don't let me stop you from using it. I like having complete control over my computer, as well, so I don't like how Norton automatically deletes benign programs I want to keep and such. So, it's not for everyone, but it may work well for you.

But, I'd still encourage all of you to try other anti-virus programs to see if you like them more than what you're currently using. That's what I did. I've used every single program we've talked about -- among many other anti-virus programs, over the years. So, I'm speaking from experience, as well.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 09:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to bring the conversation back closer to the topic I intended; I'm more concerned about the question as to whether av software is necessary at all. I haven't run up-to-date av software for nine months, and have noticed no badness. Have I been lucky or is avs generally unnecessary if you don't browse like a gobshite? Is mise 109.125.17.223 (talk) 00:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC) _{Got signed out-30 days already!} Stanstaple (talk) 00:38, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

If you've gone that long without a virus, you probably don't need an anti-virus program. This is probably largely due to a high level of discretion on your part, and partly because you probably keep your computer up to date, and partly because you're using Widows 7.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 04:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

URL for MSNBC mobile site?

What would be a persistent, dedicated URL for the mobile phone website of MSNBC? I'm trying to add it to the EL section; having a dedicated mobile site link would be good for users with slow connections and/or older computers WhisperToMe (talk) 19:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you referring to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21691139/ -- kainaw™ 19:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

That looks right to me. Thank you very much! WhisperToMe (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Fan (?) problem on HP G60 laptop

Greetings one and all,

I have a HP G60 laptop - out of warranty - which has recently been making a lot of noise with its fan. Some of you will be aware that I had a brush with a dodgy website posted over on the LangDesk recently and may have been infected with malware, which I have (hopefully) removed, but this noise has been happening since around about then. I am not saying this is the cause, I am just saying it may be. Anyway, I have found my fan starting up - pretty loudly - at various times, whether I am using the computer or whether it is just idling. I have downloaded Process Explorer, which says my processors are at 67C and my 'ACPI' is 83C - this does not seem to be too hot (having said that, the computer does feel pretty hot to me, but it always has, to be honest). I have this computer as a dual boot, with Vista as the main OS and Ubuntu 10.10 on a secondary partition. Using Ubuntu (as I am now) I find it a lot quieter. The fan doesn't start up so often. This leads me to believe that there is something happening with Vista. So, I have multiple questions here:

• What should I use to completely scan and remove this 'virus'? (I have used AVG Int Sec 2011, and Malwarebytes)
• I have HijackThis, but it is useless because it tells me to 'show someone who knows'.
• Would a full reinstall of Vista just be the best thing to do?
• If it is actually a hardware problem (dirty fan?), then... any advice on how to go about cleaning it?

Sorry for the long post with multiple questions. I hope you can help.

--KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Removing dust from the fan and associated grilles can be quite easy, or it can be extraordinarily difficult. I'm not familiar with that particular model of laptop, but take a close look at the bottom of it and see if there is a removable cover near the fan (perhaps a cover that usually lets you access the CPU). Alternatively, you could remove the whole bottom shell of the laptop, taking exact note of where everything came from (again, this could be easy or almost impossible), but it is important you know how it all goes back together again; you might be able to download a maintenance/service manual. If you can get to it, any dust can be blown away or gently picked out.

Reinstalling the OS is an easy way to be sure you have eradicated an infection, but it can be a real hassle backing up all your stuff (photos, music, emails, documents, internet favorites, etc.), locating the install disks for your software, noting all your settings/preferences and what software you downloaded and still use. Reckon on at last a whole day's work. It'll almost certainly make your PC seem faster but you'll be a bit annoyed if it turns out to be dust or faulty hardware.

If your virus scanner and malwarebytes didn't find anything, it might be worth scanning for a rootkit (which might hide malware from your scanners). Astronaut (talk) 21:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I have decided to go with a full reinstall. I have the recovery disk on a different partition. AVG Int Sec 2011 has anti-rootkit on it, and that keeps picking something up, refusing to get rid of it (but doing it anyway), then picking it up again later (turns out it's Starforce Protection driver). I'm not comfortable (just yet) with pulling this thing apart, but I will do that if I find that a reinstall hasn't solved my problem. Time for a HUGE amount of work....... :( Still, it's better than having an overheated PC to throw away. Thanks. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The "noisy fan" symptom doesn't match a virus, to me. I don't think the fans have variable speeds, they are only on or off, so there should be no way for a virus to make it noisier by making it go faster. So, what does cause a noisy fan ? Some thoughts:

1) It could be dirty, as mentioned before.

2) It could be imbalanced. This seems likely to be a manufacturing defect, so I'd think you would have had this problem all along, unless you had it open and somehow damaged the fan blades.

3) It could be hitting something (like wires) with the fan blade. This, of course, could be very bad, if the wires are eventually severed (or just lose their insulation). The good news is that this is pretty easy to fix, just open it up and reposition some wires, possibly with the aide of a twist tie or two. Of course, you would need to replace any damaged wires, if it has gotten to that point.

4) It could need lubrication. I'd only expect this problem in an old computer that receives heavy usage. StuRat (talk) 21:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

When I said the fan was 'noisy', I meant starting up every now and then, but much more often than I ever noticed before. It sounds similar to my CD deck starting up, but more of a fan-sound (because it's a fan). Also, this was very often at a time when the PC was grinding to a halt - something which was also happening a lot more often, along with lots of CPU spikes. Anyway, I have reinstalled Windows (again!), and I seem to be having no problems with it. Thanks, anyway. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Loading and buffering times

Why is it when I just start up my computer videos buffer VERY slowly? This isn't one video or site in particular either because I have tried several videos and site and they all buffer slowly in the first hour or so before my computer "warms up" but then buffer pretty quickly. Text seems to load at a normal speed. Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 21:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I would guess that your computer isn't storing the video playing software, so must download it, along with the content. Also, your computer may be doing updates and such in the background, slowing down the whole works. StuRat (talk) 21:46, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Your ISP has a congestion problem right around the time you turn on your computer?F (talk) 23:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

OS

Hello all. I recently purchased a Dell D620 laptop, with Windows Vista pre-installed. I am not a Vista fan, so does anyone know of a good free operating system I could put on it? I am thinking about Linux, but I've never used it before and have no idea which are the best versions. Could anyone recommend an OS that is 1) free 2) has all of the features of the windows 3) is good with external devices (flash drives, external hard drives, and memory card readers) and 4) and has a built in DVD driver? The last one I would not mind skipping if I can find a free Linux-based DVD driver somewhere. Thanks, --T H F S W (T · C · E) 21:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what features of Windows you're referring to, so it's hard to say whether any particular distribution can match them. I've been using Ubuntu for many years now and it does most of what you want. You may (this is not legal advice) be a bit out of luck looking for a legal DVD driver, depending on where you live. Marnanel (talk) 21:54, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I live in BC. And you can't have an illegal DVD driver for a free OS, can you? I hear that Ubuntu is a lot like a Mac, so would a Mac driver work on a Ubuntu? --T H F S W (T · C · E) 21:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The potential illegality is entirely because it's free software. DVDs use a scrambling system, and if you want to develop a descrambler you have to pay for a licence to discover how to do it, and you can't tell anyone else. Hence doing them as free software is problematic. Someone has worked out how to do it independently, but it caused no end of a rumpus. Macs run a version of BSD, which is similar to Linux but has no common ancestor; this is however irrelevant in discussing application software, whose only involvement with the kernel is through an API. Marnanel (talk) 22:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

In general, a driver for Mac OSX would not work for Ubuntu. However, it is unlikely you will have any need for that. Your laptop model has been tested with Ubuntu; your exact model may have slight hardware variations, but Ubuntu has excellent driver support overall. Regarding the DVD issue, the problem rarely applies to most users. The issue is not even about whether the driver is legal - it is whether it is free as in open source software with a compatible license to Ubuntu. See this information page. Depending on your country, the version of Ubuntu you download may be provided without DVD support "out of the box." To play DVDs, you must perform a few steps; this is usually perfectly legal but it changes your license agreement (an issue that most end users do not care about). "Ubuntu's commitment to only include completely free software by default means that proprietary media formats are not configured 'out of the box'. Ubuntu can play the most popular non-free media formats, including DVD, MP3, Quicktime, Windows Media, and more by following the instructions (here)." Nimur (talk) 22:23, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Kubuntu — (I'd suggest version 10.04 LTS [LTS = long term support] at this time) should do nicely for someone coming from Windows. After installation it'll prompt you to install/configure certain non-free things it didn't come with, and you might need to follow https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs but after that you should be all set. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Linux is Not Windows -so you would do well to read this first. I use Ubuntu a lot because it is easier to install/use/maintain/etc/etc than any release of Windows. If you go down this route then Ubuntu 10.04 LTS would be a good version to start on and there is wide community support to draw on if you have problems. Avoid a dual boot system. For a novice, it can be difficult to maintain so just get ride of windows competently. --Aspro (talk) 22:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

You blithely mention that you're "not a Vista fan" but haven't given us an indication why. Perhaps some more info would help us to answer your question, and maybe the answer would be to simply configure a few things in Vista to make it more to your liking. I wouldn't chuck out an entire OS without good reason. If you've never used Linux before even Ubuntu will not be that easy at first. You'll miss all the software and utilities you're used to in Windows (perhaps you will find Linux equivalents). You can forget about your cellphone's PC connectivity suite, your digital and video cameras' drivers and software, your 3G card's drivers, printer drivers, any made-in-China PC gadget bought off DealExtreme etc. Some of these can be made to work, with difficulty. Remember the vast majority of manufacturers support only Windows straight out of the box, leaving you to traipse around internet forums A LOT every time you need to get something working properly. Also, if you expect to use any sort of specialised software (Photoshop, video editing software, CAD, etc.) then the free equivalents on Linux are simply no match for the commercial software available on Windows or Mac. Throw out your entire OS with caution is what I'm trying to say. Zunaid 23:16, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Not OP but my experience with Vista wasn't a happy one, and it's well know for having a lot of problems. To the OP; I've only tried a few versions of linux, but Slax was pretty good in my experience and could do everything I'd expect from Windows. It can even be run live from disk without having to install, so you can use it and keep Vista as well if you wanted. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know a lot of computer geeks, and most have nothing but horror stories about Vista. I only got my laptop for the hardware. --T H F S W (T · C · E) 00:33, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:OR I actually really liked Windows Vista (Business Edition). In addition to supporting loads of new stuff "out of the box," better video acceleration, more built-in video and audio decoding support, and streamlined enhanced web browsing, it also had numerous small "nice tweaks" style enhancements over Windows XP. The most notable thing I can think of was a seamless "file renaming" user-interface. When you selected a file in Explorer and hit "F2", it highlighted all of the filename except the file extension. (A major irritation in WinXP, after having used KDE extensively for years). With Vista, I never had a hardware crash, driver problem, or blue-screen. The Windows User Account Control effectively controlled access as I needed it; the Secure Desktop (which most people recognized as a "screen flickering" when UAC kicked in) was easy to disable. Windows Power Shell was amazing as an enhancement, and a really incredible replacement for the awful Windows Script Host that XP and earlier Windows used. Meanwhile Vista's support for legacy software, especially emulated modes, was great; the networking interface was very clean. Setting up user preferences was a breeze. I could not for the life of me understand any of the vague and generic complaints people ranted about on web forums). After using Vista Business for several months, I moved jobs to an "old fogey Unix shop" that had historically used DECs and esoteric Unix flavors; to my surprise, they had just completed an upgrade of all their terminals and many of their servers to Mac OS X. So, I had the opportunity to use an Apple system for the first time since System 7. I have to say, OS X was incredibly difficult to use, configure, and learn. Much could be attributed to "user error" on my part; but I could not understand why a computer designer would look at the human hand (which usually has five fingers), and then design a mouse with one button; and then decide to add seven invisible buttons. (It took me weeks to figure out that random screen-changes and application behaviors were due entirely to the various invisible buttons on my Mac Mighty Mouse!) And while OS X claims to be "unix-y", that's really only true up to a point. I can truthfully say I've used more flavors of POSIX operating systems than I care to list, and I have never had any behave so wonky as OS X. (ssh -Y, anybody? ... and why do I need fink if OS X "is Unix" under the hood? Nothing "just worked," not our code, nor our compilers, nor our networking scripts). Point is, operating system reviewers should be specific instead of saying "Vista sucked." They should say, "Vista's User Account Control interface irritated me," or "the new video driver abstraction layer interfered with my ability to pirate certain digitally-protected content." Those are valid complaints against Vista; but "Vista Sucked" is not. I highly re-recommend Aspro's "Linux is not Windows" article - it's a great review of what you should know to expect when hopping operating-systems. Linux isn't Windows; Windows isn't OS X; OS X isn't DEC; DEC isn't eCOS; eCOS isn't ThreadX; and so on. Every operating system is different. Nimur (talk) 01:10, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

My experience with Vista is similar to Nimur's opinion. The laptop I'm using now is running Vista and has been since I bought it 3 years ago. A new laptop preinstalled with Vista should work well, and I very much doubt you will experience any of the problems mentioned in the Criticism of Windows Vista article. At work I use Ubuntu 10.04 and I also find that very good too. However, there are a few niggles with Ubuntu: while I can usually find a solution, I have to go looking for it. In particular, Open Office seems OK at first but I have noticed it has a reduced set of fonts, colours, styles, etc when compared to MS Office 2007. This means a presentation developed using Open Office won't look the same when presented using a Windows machine - so bad that I got Windows installed in a virtual machine just so I could use MS Office. Astronaut (talk) 07:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I would definitely recommend Ubuntu 10.04 Linux Desktop Edition. I have been running this OS in a virtual machine for a few months now, and I have found to be both easy to use and quite useful. Rocketshiporion♫ 12:56, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There are many Linux operating systems you can run from a CD without installing, to see how you like them Listed here: List of live CDs. 92.24.183.6 (talk) 18:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Freeware to reduce the size of PDFs

Can anyone recommend from personal experience (rather than just a Google search) any freeware compressor for PDFs please?

I've already searched on Google and found "PDF Compressor". The old version is 288k and blanked all the pages in the PDF. The new version is 1.2MB and is shareware. Is there anything else? Thanks 92.24.188.182 (talk) 22:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

IME breaking up a a PDF with gs or pdftk and then recombining with the same led to smaller files... might be more involved than you'd like, though. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK the only PDFs that will compress effectively are those with a lot of high resolution images. I have a paid-for PDF maker and compress these by printing them to PDF with a reduced resolution for the images. You could investigate free PDF creators to see whether any offer similar functions. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

External HD Unix backup

I have an Ubuntu (Lucid) machine and an external disk (with twice the capacity of the internal drive) to back it up. What I currently do (for each partition of interest) is

1. Create a partition of at least the same size (usually slightly larger because of rounding).
2. Format it with the same sort of file system (partly to make the partition map match reality, although Linux uses 83₁₆ for everything, it seems).
3. Mount that temporary file system, check that it really is big enough with df -k, then unmount it.
4. dd bs=1M if=/dev/sda5 of=/dev/sdb6 (repeated on whatever schedule)

This seems to work: the target can be mounted and could presumably be dd'd back to the real disk to restore a hosed partition. However:

1. What does it mean that the partitions aren't exactly the same size? What happens when a (say) ext4 file system is smaller than the partition it lives on?
2. Does anything bad happen if two file systems on a disk share a volume label (as will happen if I put more than one copy of a partition (with a labeled file system) on the backup disk)?
3. If this isn't already it, what's the easiest reliable way to clone partitions? (Is there something like asr?)
4. What's the easiest way of making the external disk bootable? Is it just to give it a boot partition and throw grub on it, or is copying some sort of boot information from the normal disk preferable?

My data offer thanks in advance. --Tardis (talk) 23:12, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

You know you can dd to a file, right? That and a backup of your partition table (sfdisk -d) should suffice. You could also use rsync or rdiff-backup for something simpler. For booting you just need something to tell the system to boot it (BIOS boot menu [often F12], or boot loader [GRUB, etc.]), and something that will actually boot on the device. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Hm — "of course" I know you can dd to a file (everything is a file!), but it hadn't occurred to me that it might be reasonable to just have the backup disk be one big file system holding file system image files. (It would be even nicer if they could be compressed, since none of these file systems are even half full; is there a sensible archiver that captures absolutely everything about a file system except its unallocated space and perhaps its block layout?) That, the partition table, and the -o loop option to mount(1) ought to be sufficient (since then you can examine/recover individual files) except for booting; thanks for the idea. (I'm of course open to more ideas, though!)

As for booting, I just worry about the complexity of maintaining the boot setup among the various partition copies; it would be nice if it were automatic somehow. --Tardis (talk) 23:54, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Some compression commands here: http://mark.koli.ch/2009/05/howto-whole-disk-backups-with-dd-gzip-and-p7zip.html ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:24, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Those will try to compress the image as a whole, and if you have "recently" zeroed the disk, so that all unallocated space is trivial to compress, that's great. But (for example) I have 13 GB duplicated from another computer that I'll delete once I'm sure it's safe elsewhere, and even p7zip can't be nearly as efficient as a tool that recognizes that they've been deleted. (See also my reply to Nil Einne.) --Tardis (talk) 17:05, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

If the image is stored as a file and the unallocated space isn't read (I think even dd can do the later?) it could be considered all zeros so all you need is a program that writes it as a sparse file. From a quick search a simple way to compress it would be to pipe it to an appropriate compressor although I guess that would be obvious to anyone with some *nix familiarity [5] (actually I appear to be repeating what you said, perhaps I misunderstood the compression comment). That also mentions partimage [6] Nil Einne (talk) 01:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

dd certainly can't avoid copying unallocated space (since it has to work even if there's no file system on the device at all). partimage says right on that front page that it copies only the allocated data; it doesn't do ext4 but the similar tools fsarchiver and partclone do. I also found a clever hack to let image compression à la gzip work: create/delete a huge file of zeros to make the empty space compressible (or sparse). I'm still wondering about the other three questions, but these new tools/ideas are probably sufficient in practice. Thanks. --Tardis (talk) 17:05, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Is 'dd' really the best way to back up a linux system? (Keep in mind, dd copies every bit off your disk, whether there is filesystem data on it or not, errors and fragmentation included.) Have you considered using rsync or rdiff-backup? Duplicity is a pretty nice tool for simply managing backups in a more efficient way. I do my backups to an external disk using rsync's --link-dest option for a poor-man's snapshots, which means that the only new files created in the new sync are the ones that have changed. Of course, to restore a system, you'll have to create the partitions, volumes and filesystems before restoring, but that might be easier than trying to make sure dd creates everything correctly. -- JSBillings 15:28, 7 January 2011 (UTC)