Oh dear, poor blinkered TNP. What is one of the lest reliable components in a PC? Ok, I'll help you out here, the HDD. So, if the HDD fails (and it has on the Mrs's PC twice since I've been running the WHS), it's a very quick and easy task to recover the entire system onto a new HDD!
There, that's another thing you have learned today. ;-)
(I fully understand though that the best way to hide any deficiencies in Linux is to deny you or anyone else would ever need such a thing .... then, when it finally catches up and *can* do it (like support Steam or offer in place upgrades or you never know, automatic updates ...) you suddenly tout it as the best thing since sliced bread!)
Don't forget, the likes of TNP are part of the LinuxBorg hive so that sort of thing ... and even considering the need to have to do that sort of thing, is considered perfectly acceptable / reasonable to them.
So, find anyone looking at a failed hard drive (potentially containing their entire photographic / document life) and the cost of even seeing if they can get it recovered professionally, V 50 quids worth of WHS and an old PC (or even a new one), they would consider the value of a WHS (or similar from a NAS etc) very good VFM (or even 'cheap'). And, they (ordinary users, not part of the LinuxBorg collective) and after being given a few pointers, would be able to make good use of such a solution. To get even close on Linux, you would be *expected* to have to be assimilated into the LinuxBorg collective, discard any friends, family or normal lifestyle, build yourself a basement and resign yourself to reading .man files and pouring over code and CLI gobbledygook for the rest of your (often sad) life. ;-)
All that is why, a good few years after Linux became useable on the desktop (as a web-terminal / typewriter), it's still pretty well unknown to anyone.
Linux (to most) is that deal that is too good to be true ... because it is, because there is often a big 'gotcha' that makes it a non starter. It is the electric car in an IC car world. That doesn't make it in itself bad, it just means it generally doesn't fit in and for all but a few, is totally unusable (let alone ideal) as an everyday solution.
Feck, even TNP would have to run Windows if he was only allowed to have one OS (and not run his 'Windows only' stuff in a Windows VM on Linux and make believe he isn't still running Windows). Bless. ;-)
I also have Ghost images of machines I might want an additional snapshot. Like if I've got a fresh laptop with a factory recovery partition and I may want to use the whole drive for something (and so be able to restore it easily later etc).
I generally do and have a whole collection of Lini going back from when it first because useable (without having to be a geek) so from about Ubuntu 6 onwards.
I even put Mint Cinnamon 18.2 64 bit on my Yumi Multiboot pen stick yesterday (another very handy but Windows only app, so that includes running it under WINE or a Windows VM for all those Windows users in denial). ;-)
What a wonderful display of envy and stupdity and venom to be sure.
All I have to say is that the OP is in the mess he is in because he runs windows.
He needs more than a command line to get him out. Much more.
If you want to live in a country and run computer sofrware thar has only one ultimate purpose - to separate you from the fruits of your labours and keep you enslaved in a commercial system run by people who despise you, hell vote remain and run Microsoft Windows
Really? Oh, sorry, I know ... the denial that Windows in a VM isn't Windows ... Bwhahahahaha!
Bingo. Windows is for the vast majority of ordinary people who actually have lives and can do everything they want easily under Windows and then the tiny (and often weird) minority who don't have lives (or girlfriends in many cases) and who want to make a hobby / study out of what should be (in 2017) an appliance.
The irony of course is whenever I've pushed *you* to giving any real technical solutions to my Linux problems (that you can't easily Google to, as if you could I would already have done so), you faceplant then run away crying. ;-(
Yes he does, and he runs it under a Windows VM and actually believes that means he isn't running Windows!!
I run OSX, Windows XP, 7, 8.1 (on one Laptop) , WHS V1 and 2011 (So WS
2003/8), W10 and several eras, distros and DE's of Linux and Android (that isn't GNU/Linux, it just runs on the Linux kernel, just as my TV and router do).
So, I *know* very well what all of them can and can't do and how easy it is for me to fix / recover / update any of them.
I've been in IT most of my life and that includes me playing with PC hardware and the OS's that make them useful. All I know is that there are few things I can do on Linux (that I actually *want / need to do*) that I can't easier do on Windows .. or in some cases, can *only* do in Windows.
Now, the std reply to that from the LinuxBorg is not to use / do those things! Talk about the tail wagging the dog!
I would love to be able to stick Linux on my little Acer Aspire (touchscreen) V5 Netbook [1] and run up the car diagnostics software (ForScan or OpCom) but they are Windows only. Same with updating my Garmin GPS and a myriad of stuff that is only officially supported on / with Windows but you might get lucky if someone in a shed has cobbled together an unsupported driver to allow the LinuxBorg to be able to use some of it as well.
And try looking for 'Linux Compatible' hardware in your local PC shop ... of getting someone to sort out a problem on Linux for you.
I've been in the game for nearly 40 years and I still don't know personally of a single Linux users who could actually fix most of my Linux problems. Actually ... maybe that is more about the sort of people I'm likely to make a friend. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
[1] I actually have it dual booting W7 with Mint 18 Mate and it mostly works (inc the touchscreen) but whilst the trackpad X axis movement is good (one sweep of the pad = the mouse covering the width of the screen) the Y axis is way less?
They can though, if you know what you are doing (as I have shares in all sorts of directions here going between everything from XP to W10 etc).
The biggest problem I have is making sense of Linux shares. I have an OMV file server running here on a RiPi3 / 3TB Laptop drive and I must have wasted *hours* trying to make logical sense of the shares and permissions etc. And I was a CNI (Certified Novell Instructor) and ran several servers at work and so fairly conversant with the concepts of such things.
I love it on a Linux Client when you get the 'Share' option and it goes off and sorts out all the background stuff for you, very much like earlier Windows etc). ;-)
In fact, the more they make Linux work like Windows, the easier it is to use. Strange that eh! ;-)
I have a couple of VMs, one for running W7 and another for some flavour of Linux Mint, but I've not run either for a year or more. No reason to at the minute.
When windows doesn't work you need to fix it, or discover no fix is known. When linux doesn't work you can just change distro. It saves time & hassle. I can't think of anything that would tempt me back to windows. Linux just works way more of the time than win ever did, and when it doesn't it's easier to sort out.
IME if windows doesn't work its the hardware. When there is a serious windows bug someone will be working to fix it.
When there is a linux bug you may well have to fix it yourself. This is beyond 99.9% of users so they are in the same boat as windows users who need someone else to fix it.
Windows has lots of automated tools that will fix problems these days.
One of my friends had an external hard drive, with loads of work resources on it. The technicians at work had a go at getting the data off. They faile d and I was given a shot. I plugged the drive into a machine running UBUNTU and I could see and copy the files, as if they had been working all the ti me. It was too easy, I had to check with her that they were the actual file s she was after.
Of course, same as anything that can be broken I guess?
Whilst it's entirely possible, I can't think of the last time I discovered such. The reason being, pretty well *every* piece of hardware and software is created with Windows in mind, then, OSX, then (and if you are lucky), Linux. But what Linux, what distro with what kernel with what desktop etc etc. I've downloaded many a Windows app that states it's compatible with Wxp to W10, 32/64 bit. With Linux you often have at least 4 main choices (to make), of not many more. And you can also 'build it yourself', but I can't think many who would be able to and again, the 'instructions' (as required by anyone who isn't a LinuxBorg or programmer etc) are only for that distro and that kernel and that DE etc etc.
What, from say Mint to Ubuntu ... or Debian etc? And then you find the tools you just started getting used to don't exist on that distro and when you install them they bring in loads of other cruft or duplications that you really didn't want.
Oh, you mean 'Reinstalling your OS from scratch'? Isn't that what we are told we have to do with Windows?
I'm not aware of anyone who is trying to. ;-)
'For you' ... but then if all you need is a web terminal and typewriter, then so it should!
Well, you are lucky to have the time, skill and interest to be able to. I'd rather not need to in the first place are rarely ever need to with Windows (for the reasons stated above).
Can't remember actually seeing a 'Designed for Linux' sticker on any hardware or software in any shop (although such may well exist).
I've done the same a few times by putting a drive into a USB 'desktop caddy' plugged into a Linux system and in fact, set the local PC shop with such a system for those drives that Windows didn't like (or even a LiveDVD/USB and another USB drive (or DVDRW if running from USB) to dump the files on).
As you say, 'very easy' when it works like that. ;-)
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