Phytotron's stupid computer blog

[Tank Program]

That looks like a pretty solid deal, especially considering that you got the monitor with it. I think it should do what you want and the hardware should be good for three or four years technology wise. I also don't see anything in the hardware specs that makes it look Linux unfriendly. If the same model with the slower CPU works, the faster CPU should work fine as well. There are no differences in drivers there.

From what I know personally I wouldn't expect a "nomodeset" type issue, but if you've seen mentions I suppose it could be a possibility.

Dual booting is always a tough question. You can either view it as a convenience or an inconvenience. "Isn't it handy that I have Windows around for when X doesn't work in Linux" vs. "Crap, I hate rebooting for X." The Ubuntu installer should conveniently allow you to set it up. The real thing to be aware of is that it can be very easy to accidentally destroy Windows from Linux and vice-versa. Neither OS inherently protects you from doing something stupid to the other. How hard it is to do something to itself is... variable.

I would personally recommend staying away from Hackintosh, although I admit I haven't seen it in use for a while so I don't know the current state of things. In my mind if there are no guarantees with Linux, there are even fewer with Hackintosh or OSx86. Again, I could just be biased there, but I know that, for example, I would not really be able to help out there.

[Phytotron]

From what I know personally I wouldn't expect a "nomodeset" type issue, but if you've seen mentions I suppose it could be a possibility.

It was that and/or something to do with xorg, and/or something to do with, uh...some command forcing it into a resolution? Or something. Obviously, I have no idea what any of this stuff is, and for some reason I can't find where I read it now.

The real thing to be aware of is that it can be very easy to accidentally destroy Windows from Linux and vice-versa.

Yeah, that's what I'm concerned about. And stuff about shrinking the Windows partition (and which method to use), and this deal with the location of the 'Master File Table' in Windows 7, mentioned here. Then, eh, I don't get what's going on with the Ubuntu documentation sometimes. For instance, with respect to dual booting, this page (which leads here) makes the process seem relatively straight-forward. But then this one, ugh...what?

Heh. I'm so clueless. Such a good idea, this going PC thing.

Yikes, preview doesn't like this. Boo.

If I had my druthers I'd set it up to dual boot. I mean, I hate Microsoft and Windows, but since it's already there, may as well check out some exclusive (free) programs. Not that I have any in mind at the moment. That is, except for that lightcycle game sinewav mentioned, the name of which I can't recall or find. Maybe I could even get "Omikron: The Nomad Soul" working, though I've read it has some graphical problems on recent versions of Windows.

[Tank Program]

The real thing to be aware of is that it can be very easy to accidentally destroy Windows from Linux and vice-versa.

Yeah, that's what I'm concerned about. And stuff about shrinking the Windows partition (and which method to use), and this deal with the location of the 'Master File Table' in Windows 7, mentioned here. Then, eh, I don't get what's going on with the Ubuntu documentation sometimes. For instance, with respect to dual booting, this page (which leads here) makes the process seem relatively straight-forward. But then this one, ugh...what?

Ugh indeed. Simultaneous over and under documentation. Enough information to worry you, not enough to make any sort of informed risk assessment. I can probably say... with at least 90% confidence that the Ubuntu installer should handle it all magically. Doing it by hand personally I'd have 98% confidence. Someone new to PCs, Windows, and Linux trying it by hand, as the Magic 8-ball might say - "Outlook not so good." Mostly due to the wide variety of documentation: man pages, wikis, blogs, etc. Odds are at least one will say something different from all the rest, which will only confuse. With enough time and effort, depending on how good one is at information synthesis, it's possible to get around this, but ugh indeed.

Overall I'd just try and trust Ubuntu to setup the dual-booting. If it doesn't work there's nothing lost. Alternatively, if you've got a relatively large USB key, you should be able to copy the Dell recovery partition onto it. Then if shit completely hits the fan you can use that to restore Windows. I admit though that I haven't tested that myself, but see no reason why it wouldn't work if done correctly. Sadly the steps are probably user un-friendly in the sense of busting out the console, but should be relatively straight forward to understand and execute.

[Phytotron]

Yeah, I reckon it boils down to, "give it a try. Worst case, you fudge up Windows and do a clean install of Ubuntu anyway."

Or.... I get 90 days free phone support from Dell. Maybe they can walk me through it, at least the Windows side of it. I think I read in the Ubuntu documentation a suggestion of doing a re-install from a recovery disc (which I think I can get free from Dell; you just have to ask) so you can have control from the outset in the size of the partition(s)—as a way to avoid the MFT issue and risk of overwriting Windows. 'Course, then I might lose some of the bloatware. Oh dear, no limited-functionality Word/Excel with advertisements.

But then, Ubuntu DualBoot documentation says

Apparently Windows 7 installs 2 partitions on a standard install from their Cd. The first partition being a tiny "Recovery Partition". Apparently this makes it difficult for grub to boot up the system. Since we haven't seen many questions about this in the forums i am not certain this is really a problem but i will attempt to link to some guides from a google search (or something) later.

Bleh.

By the way, when it comes to partition size, they say things like "be sure to leave at least 10-20 GB for [Ubuntu/Windows]." But, the partition is supposed to include not only the OS, but all files and applications, right? Or are they assuming isolating the OS on one partition and all your files and applications on another? As usual, they're not explicit about this.


I'll stop nagging you all and move my questioning over to Ubuntu support forums eventually. You guys are just a convenient resource at the moment, which, again, I appreciate.

Flash video is an annoying combination of CPU and GPU, hurrah!

As far as I can tell, the main differences between my eMac and this Power Mac I'm presently using are as follows:

eMac — 1.42 GHz G4, 1MB RAM, Radeon 9600, OS 10.4
Power Mac — 1.25 GHz G4, 2MB RAM (2x512MB salvaged from eMac), Radeon 9000, OS 10.5

The eMac played flash video better (still not great), but a page full of animated gifs would really bog down the browser and animate slowly. The Power Mac plays animated gifs well, but videos like crud.

I dunno, idle observation.

It [is] one of those belt-tightening, hoping no big, unexpected expenses hit us before we catch up, kind of things.

Damnit!

[Lucifer]

Yeah, I reckon it boils down to, "give it a try. Worst case, you fudge up Windows and do a clean install of Ubuntu anyway."

I wouldn't bother. I'd do the clean install of Ubuntu and later install VirtualBox with a Windows OS in it. It's not as hard as it sounds, hardly even advanced use.

By the way, when it comes to partition size, they say things like "be sure to leave at least 10-20 GB for [Ubuntu/Windows]." But, the partition is supposed to include not only the OS, but all files and applications, right? Or are they assuming isolating the OS on one partition and all your files and applications on another? As usual, they're not explicit about this.

That usually includes everything, user files and all. It used to be that you put the OS on a small 2-4GB partition, put your swap partition in the middle, and then left the rest of the hard drive allocated to /home. In that scenario, I put a small hard drive in for the OS and swap, and then used an entire hard drive for /home.

Anyway, passed the gobbledy-gook, that usually means everything, files, OS, everything.

[Jonathan]

eMac — 1.42 GHz G4, 1MB RAM, Radeon 9600, OS 10.4
Power Mac — 1.25 GHz G4, 2MB RAM (2x512MB salvaged from eMac), Radeon 9000, OS 10.5

The eMac played flash video better (still not great), but a page full of animated gifs would really bog down the browser and animate slowly. The Power Mac plays animated gifs well, but videos like crud.

That whole megabyte of RAM probably can't hold those GIFs, whereas 2 MB can?

Seriously though, the slightly higher clock speed of the eMac may be just enough to keep up with the video. Video codecs either work fine, or they fail horribly. There isn't much in between. I think QuickTime can/could skip B frames, giving some leeway where the framerate drops instead of locking up. I'm not sure about Flash.

I think the GIFs may be explained by the OS/Safari version. Safari has changed its GIF handling a few times. Due to some sort of technicality it didn't cache the last frame, usually meaning the entire animation up to the current frame had to be decoded, over and over. Not pretty. You'll know that's your problem if the animation starts out well, but slows down toward the end. Yeah, don't shoot the messenger.

[Phytotron]

Thanks, Luficer. That 20GB seemed a little small for these days, what with the size of some programs and even files; maybe it's just slightly dated documentation. And hell, I'm getting a 1TB drive in this thing.

I think the GIFs may be explained by the OS/Safari version. ....

Ah, but I use(d) Camino on both. Same version, too—one of the few developers still supporting PPC's. The Safari versions are different—4.1.3 on the eMac, 5.0.6 on this one—but I never use(d) it. And yeah, it wouldn't be the type of slowing behavior you describe; they ran slowly throughout, and bogged down the browser overall.

Video performance on the eMac would sometimes skip frames, mainly and especially at 480p with the larger window, but it would be watchable. On this Power Mac it'll get all jittery—both video and audio—even at 240p sometimes. I have to pause, let it load a bit, click forward to the end of that, let it load some more, repeat all the way to the end, then reset to the beginning and play. After doing that, it'll still drop some frames (especially if I try to do anything else, like scroll the window), but at least it's comparably "smooth" (as in, audio doesn't cut in and out). Should be the same version of Flash on both computers.

I've also put both Perian and Flip4Mac on both these computers, with more recent versions of each on this one, but I wouldn't think they'd be relevant to flash videos or gifs.

I dunno, like I said, just idle observation of not much consequence. I just found the juxtaposition a little peculiar, how all these components—hardware and software—work together. I haven't had the opportunity to use many other programs for comparisons, but haven't really noticed any differences in the few I have.

lalala

[Lucifer]

Use mplayer.

Framedropping done right, you shouldn't notice frames dropping until you're about the half way point or farther, depending on the action. It's the difference between planning ahead and dropping frames while you've got plenty of CPU time and waiting until the last minute and then dropping like 20 frames at once. I used to watch DVDs on a 350mhz AMD processor of some sort with only 256MB RAM, and mplayer did fine, but nothing else did. Mplayer plans ahead.

[Lucifer]

On the subject of performance, because of the way partitions are handled in Linux, it's actually worthwhile for you to buy the smallest, fastest hard drive you can and installing your OS on it. You'll still wind up with an ungodly huge hard drive, but that's fine. Put / and swap on it and make it the fastest little ****** you can get.

Then mount up /home from a second drive that is, in your estimation, the biggest bang for the buck. Later, should you opt for a more advanced network with a file server, you can just move your second hard drive to the file server and <a bunch of technical shit I'll be happy to expound upon when/if you need it>.

[Tank Program]

Oh dear, where to start - there's so many interesting things being discussed. I'm just going to go down the thread in order.

If you can squeeze a recovery DVD out of Dell that would be fantastic. That would be incredibly useful in a variety of situations. Including the potential install inside of VirtualBox one tha Lucifer mentioned. More on that later.

I do have two Windows 7 partitions on my laptop. I was under the impression that the first, smaller, hidden one was actually something to do with booting and UEFI and other annoying things like that, rather than recovery. When you have that an "ideal" Linux partioning scheme becomes something like this, which is what I have on my laptop.

Code: Select all

/dev/sda1      HPFS/NTFS/exFAT         The Crummy Windows 7 boot/recovery partition
/dev/sda2      HPFS/NTFS/exFAT         Windows 7 C:\ - all apps, data, etc.
/dev/sda3   *  Linux                   Linux /boot partition. This is important.
/dev/sda4      Extended                Extended partition, umbrella for everything else.
/dev/sda5        Linux                 Well crap if I don't know what this one is.
/dev/sda6        Linux swap / Solaris  Swap space
/dev/sda7        Linux                 Root file system, /
/dev/sda8        Linux                 /home, user data
/dev/sda9        HPFS/NTFS/exFAT       HP Recovery Partition, shuffled
/dev/sda10       95 FAT32 (LBA)        HP Diagnostics Partition, shuffled

Here I've done a lot of clever resizing and whatnot to keep those damn HP partitions around. I didn't even think about asking for a disk. The key thing is is having /boot as a primary partition. This lets you keep the Master Boot Recored th default blank of booting the active partition as a means of circumventing the Linux boot loader if anything goes wrong. In order to have enough space for everything else though, then you need the extended (logical) partition.

The advice about leaving so much space is because the OS + Applications takes up a lot, even if you're not sharing data between. In practice, I keep most Windows data on that side of the divide, so my Windows partition is actually around 90 GB. Most of this is taken up by games. (Woo, Portal 2!) Realistically you need at least 30 GB for Windows 7 I think. You can sort of live in 20 GB, but if eventually you end up hitting that limit it will annoy you to hell trying to fix that later.

If you do want to share data between, add a FAT32 partition somewhere, but keep in mind that there's a 4GB file size limit. Strictly this practice is somewhat old since Linux is much better about reading NTFS file systems these days. However, if you ever plug this hard disk into a Mac, if you've got a FAT32 it won't have any trouble reading it. Trying to read NTFS or EXT3/4 will be painful.

Good old Radeon. The fundamental difference I see there is that the 9600 is really a 3D card while the 9000 is a 2D card. I imagine the drivers are doing some silly stuff with Quartz and those other things I can't remember the name of. Sufficed to say that if you have what's effectively a 2D card (like the ATI Rage I have in my G4) the 2D performance is phenomenal. Maybe that's been sacrificed somewhat, counting on the 3D acceleration inherent in Aqua? I have no real ideas here.

Right, back to VirtualBox. The main thing I'd be worried about here is that if you want to use any Windows only hardware inside of VirtualBox things get harder. A lot much so. Theoretically you can directly connect a USB device through Linux to the instance of Windows 7 inside, but I've found that to be a bit... unreliable at times. And then if you have anything that uses the Parallel or Serial ports you're essentially SOL unless you're an expert - I don't think I could get it to do what I'd want.

[Lucifer]

I was thinking VirtualBox for the sake of software needed that runs in Windows but has no comparable alternative in Linux (a problem I haven't encountered in literally YEARS). There's also the possibility of running Windows for hardware compatibility, and then wrapping yourself in a VirtualBox instance for the UI you want. Dunno if that's practical for you.

There's also the desktop sharing option in Windows, but to use that for windows-only hardware you'd need to set up a separate machine, and then scope creep has set in.

Really, you should probably just try it and if it don't work, switch it out to something that does. Where "try" doesn't really mean "Give it a few hours and see if you like it". It's like moving into a new house. You can look at it and like it, then rent it, but you don't really know how it fits you until you've been there a few months.

[Jonathan]

Some more ranting about antique stuff just because I can.

Good old Radeon. The fundamental difference I see there is that the 9600 is really a 3D card while the 9000 is a 2D card. I imagine the drivers are doing some silly stuff with Quartz and those other things I can't remember the name of. Sufficed to say that if you have what's effectively a 2D card (like the ATI Rage I have in my G4) the 2D performance is phenomenal. Maybe that's been sacrificed somewhat, counting on the 3D acceleration inherent in Aqua? I have no real ideas here.

What makes a 2D or 3D card? The 9000 could certainly do 3D, although it wasn't the fastest. And I think that's all OS X used. An ordinary window's content was drawn using the CPU. That image was then drawn on screen by the GPU's "3D" pipeline. Nowadays that's still the core idea, although GPU use is slowly spreading. Either way, I think you should only notice the difference between the 9000 and 9600 in games.

[Phytotron]

Use mplayer.

I'm sure I will be once I get Ubuntu going—that and/or VLC, from what I've been reading. It's not really relevant for this computer since I'm not going to be using it much longer. Might install it for my sister, although she rarely uses this. Er, except the official mplayer page requires you to compile from source? Pfft. There do appear to be, what I guess are "unofficial," versions for Mac that don't require that. Eh, whatever.


As for all the rest, I do believe you guys have just jumped over my head and beyond my needs.

Remember, Lucifer, I already have a computer in the mail, and I'm not going to be fiddling with (or funding) replacing or installing extra hard drives. (I would've preferred a smaller drive, but 1TB is what it came with.) A network and file server stuff? Nope, well beyond my needs, I think. We never even did any file sharing between our Macs.

Tank, I just now looked up what "/dev/sda1..." refer to: /device/partition1... right? I guess a partition even on the same drive counts as a separate "device?" Oh, it's "device file." Aha. What comes before /dev/? Root? Well, in any case, I probably won't get it until I can sit down and look at it in front of me. On the plus side, thanks to the Unix core commonality, the file directories in Linux should be a little more familiar to me as a Mac user than it would be for Windows users transitioning over. Of course, I'm going to be reading plenty more documentation and use the LiveCD a few times before I actually install.

And sda5-10 are all "logical partitions" within the Extended partition (something else I just looked up), yeah?

But anyway, I don't think I need all those partitions, do I? At least not at this stage. I was hoping to keep this as simple as possible, and maybe dual booting goes beyond that; we'll see (I'm still waiting to see how they partitioned it at the factory). But I was figuring on just having the given OS, applications, and files all on one partition, as I always have. I understand there are downsides to that, and benefits of separating everything. But you also have to consider my competency and knowledge level. And, for that matter, how much time and effort I want, or even have available, to invest in this, which isn't a great deal.

I mean, really, I'm hoping to use this on a more-or-less superficial level. From what I've seen, once Ubuntu is installed and set up I should be able to get by doing most, if not all, of what I usually do with most, if not all, of the pre-installed applications, plus PPA's in the software center, without having to diddle around with the OS itself and other technical geeky things too much. I hope. Moreover, at present, I'm still treating this as a probable temporary thing, unless it turns out that I really dig the Ubuntu way of doing things—or more importantly, get it.

But, don't you two take this as dismissive ingratitude. I genuinely appreciate the input, and now it's a permanent resource for me, too. Following as best I can.

If you do want to share data between, add a FAT32 partition somewhere, but keep in mind that there's a 4GB file size limit. Strictly this practice is somewhat old since Linux is much better about reading NTFS file systems these days. However, if you ever plug this hard disk into a Mac, if you've got a FAT32 it won't have any trouble reading it. Trying to read NTFS or EXT3/4 will be painful.

Yeah, that's something to consider. I had assumed I'd be able to use the Ubuntu One service to not only back up my data (unless I exceed the free 5 GB, then...I dunno), but also be able to download from there to a Mac (supposedly Ubuntu can read-only HFS+, so that direction of transfer is covered). But apparently there's not an official/totally-stable Mac client yet, though supposedly one in the works. There's this one in the works, but I dunno. Hmm.

The advice about leaving so much space....

Yeah, I figured with a 1TB HD I'd be giving each OS a rather sizable partition; more than enough, surely. In fact, it wouldn't be so much "how small can I get away with" as "how big is too big?" I mean, hell, I just checked my former eMac drive, and it says 74.4GB with 48.6GB free. I didn't even use half that thing over the course of 3 years, heh. Granted, I had a lot of data on my former iMac drive, but still. From 80 to 1024? Heh, what the hell? What am I supposed to do with all that? Must be for people who put all those pirated movies one their drive, is all I can figure.


And what's Windows-only hardware?

antique

I tell you what, man, if we had dough to throw around, and didn't feel guilty about it, we'd get a couple of these beauties: http://www.oldtimecomputer.com/oldtimec ... /home.html

[epsy]

Er, except the official mplayer page requires you to compile from source? Pfft.

Ah :) There's this unwritten bit of knowledge: Most Linux open-source developers assume that you're going to just get their software out of whatever channels your distribution provides(in your case, Ubuntu Software Center), and that if you went on their website, well you're just looking for the source or something.

As for all the rest, I do believe you guys have just jumped over my head and beyond my needs. :)

Tank, I just now looked up what "/dev/sda1..." refer to:

Essentially, /dev/ collects a representation of each of your devices, including hard drives. In it you'll typically have sdan, standing for -- I guess -- SATA drive A, partition n. (If you plug another, it will create sdb* and so on. You could typically observe this when plugging in a pen drive -- not that your file manager will not abstract this a little from you.)

And sda5-10 are all "logical partitions" within the Extended partition (something else I just looked up), yeah?

Yes, "primary" partitions can only go up to the amount of four. Then someone came up with the extended partition idea, which lets more partitions be made. The whole thing is itself a partition. Old systems could not boot directly into it, but if you install GRUB into the MBR(a location right at the start of the drive, looked at at boot), it will handle it just fine. I'm quite sure UEFI-based systems will have absolutely no problem booting directly into a logical partition. Heck, you can actually forget Tank's advice to separate /boot away. All my linux partitions are logical, I've only left windows in place as primary partitions. See screeny. As you can see, 50GB turned out to be a little short. I've got a few games installed on it, these tend to become quite big lately.

But anyway, I don't think I need all those partitions, do I?

Not really. In fact, the installer should have an option to install Ubuntu alongside Windows that should suit you fine, without asking too many questions either.

I had assumed I'd be able to use the Ubuntu One service to not only back up my data (unless I exceed the free 5 GB, then...I dunno), but also be able to download from there to a Mac (supposedly Ubuntu can read-only HFS+, so that direction of transfer is covered).

Personally I'd just use a pen drive, hehe.

And what's Windows-only hardware?

I assume that's a shortcut for hardware which don't have a driver, usually because it uses undocumented proprietary interfaces, or something in the like.

[Lucifer]

Yeah, skip the complicated bit.

Here's the simple bit:

1. Install Windows. Reformat the drive and put Windows on a 500GB partition. (If need be, copy the license key from the bottom of the computer so you can input it into the appropriate place)
2. Install Ubuntu in all remaining space, and let IT figure out how to partition you. (It'll give you a swap partition and a / partition and that's all you need. Everything else is just nerd boner-poking)
3. Play with your new computers (since, at that point, you will have two computers).