Windows to linux - was part of Slow Windows

[bert]

I found a simple option in W7 Burn Files to Disc.

[Johnny B Good]

Presumably this is an option specifically to burn an image to an optical disk rather than, as the name implies, to burn the iso image file as just simply a large file to a data disk?

[Bob Eager]

I just tried it and yes, if you have a .ISO file, it offers the option to burn the image to the CD/DVD/BD.

[bert]

Yes and I managed to boot from it until Linux asked or a username then it froze.

[Johnny B Good]

====snip====

If this was the point in the installation where it was asking you to

*create* a username, that's more likely a problem of corruption in the iso file you happened to download.

I hit this problem myself around April/May this year with a few of the different Linux Mint 17 releases I was trying out. In one case, the torrent downloaded image file MD5 checksum failed to match but a direct download from the University of Kent's server produced a correct MD5 hash and did install ok. However, another version either showed a good checksum and still failed or showed the same bad checksum using an alternative download source and kept failing anyway (at a slightly later stage in the process).

I was using bootable flash media rather than a bootable DVD but I think I still experienced the same fails when I tried optical media. "Shit Happens"(tm F Gump) so it's worth checking the MD5 checksums on those downloaded image files before trying to burn a boot DVD or create a bootable USB flash drive, especially if you've used a torrent source.

[Bob Eager]

Probably worth giving the URL:

[The Natural Philosopher]

After hat point it spends many minutes downloading and installing stuff silently.

[dennis]

8<

Well that's stupid if it doesn't let the user know its doing something. Its one of the important things about interface design.

I would classify that as a fix it *now* fault.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Normally IIRC there's a running slide show and a progress bar.

But some deep stuff happens first. Hardware probes. You may simply have been too impatient.

[CB]

One of my regular arguments with a freind about the benefits of windows verses macs was his preference that Macs don't keep telling you what they are doing they just get on with it in the background (whilst windows insists on keeping telling you what its doing).

Imagine my interest when on the upgrade from one version of iTunes to another his itunes kept freezing and never completing the upgrade.

It eventually transpired that his music collection (we are talking thousands of CDs) was so large that itunes had to be left for about 20 hours to do its stuff. After which it worked fine. It had apparently been working as designed all the time and he had wasted about a week with a constantly freezing itunes......

[dennis]

8<

Some software designers are idiots. The user should always be told what is going to happen so they know it isn't broken. If its going to take a long time then tell the user its going to happen in the background and give them a status somewhere so they can check on progress.

[The Natural Philosopher]

SOMETIMES that simply isn't possible. Deep hardware magic that needs to wait for possibly never occurring response from hardware that turns out to be non existent can tie the kernel and indeed the while machine up.

Its pretty hard to write that sort of code in a multi tasking way.

[Johnny B Good]

Well, from the point of view of checking the files on the mirror sites for corruption at any rate.

I knew *something* was wrong with the installer process (bug or corrupted file) since I had the successful experiences with the other desktop versions to provide a benchmark. Also, the first few times, I waited an hour or more before giving up and trying again with the 'download updates in the background' feature turned off.

In at least one case, data corruption was implicated by the MD5 checksum mismatch but this wasn't so clearly the case with other versions and distros I had similar problems with.

As I've already mentioned "Shit Happens"(tm F. Gump) so I just shrugged my shoulders after a second download gave the same trouble and moved onto yet another desktop version or distro (too many imponderables to get all worked up about, not the least being one of hardware compatibility let alone bugs or file corruption). After all, it's not as if there aren't a shedload of distros and desktop versions to choose from. :-)

[Johnny B Good]

That's the main reason why I despise any manufacturer that has the gall to save a penny or two on that most vital of tell-tales, the HDD activity LED.

[dennis]

There is no hardware that should stop multitasking on a multitasking machine. (Even though I found some cr@p software on a Tandem nonstop unix machine that did stop the machine when my print ran out of paper).

Anyway this isn't hardware it a simple bit of UI and an incompetent programmer or stupid programming rules that need ignoring.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The scheduler is not always the highest priority interrupt, and its perfectly possible to turn interrupts off if you want to do some special timing stuff.

The hardware doesn't stop the multi tasking. The kernel may, if its got better things to do

[bert]

No it asked me for my username, I assumed it was going to use that to create one for future use.

Ok I'll try the Kent server if I can find it - but I thought this was going to be simple.

[bert]

Thank you _I'd never have guessed it :-)

[bert]

I did leave it for some time - as in walked off and had a cup of tea etc.

[Big Les Wade]

Johnny B Good posted

Whereas with Windows, you just do it and it works, and you haven't wasted endless hours struggling with it. Yes, folks, Linux is the right way to go. If you're retired with nothing better to do.