Has anyone......re Vista

Replacing the compressor, or if only needed a new clutch assembly w/coil-magnet, should still have been only a few hundred having someone else do it. Involves vacuum pumping the system afterwards, or as shade tree mechanics did in the days before CFC's became such a crime, you'd put in a can then flush it out the high side, then do it again and that mostly cleared it to finish filling up without worry of atmosphere contamination.

Josh, what did they do to your system? Replace the whole thing?

Apparently when it blew, it shattered some other parts and sent shards of metal into places that they couldn't get it out of. They replaced the compressor ($550), the condenser ($398), a section of hose ($17 and some other less expensive parts, and charged us $800 for labor. We had it done at the dealership which is why the labor cost was so high, but at least it's warrantied for 12 months or 12,000 miles, which is more than most local garages will warranty any repairs for.

We're considering leasing our next car, LOL.

Must have had the bearings inside start binding from lack of lubrication and reamed the shaft right off it. On the older cars the belt being smaller and devoted just to AC usually would have popped off first. These newer cars use the wide, heavy torque, serpentine belts, maybe only one which winds in a contorted fashion to run from the crank pulley the AC, alternator, go past idler/tensioner arm, water pump, power steering, and whatever else may be there. Those belts are heavy duty enough they'll tear the hell out of something before they'd break.

Most drivers for most peripherals come preloaded. I could have used my old printer, but opted for an all-in-one for $100 to save space

The price came out no more than a PC I was considering as the service policy is cheaper for an Apple.

Angeline
Speakeasy Moderator

If you have broadband, there are various Linux distributions available for free but no single clearing house for them that I've found. The latest versions will be what you want and probably won't be in boxed such in boxed merchandise. I've tried Linux with mixed success. I'd install various distributions on a PC I was retiring just to try and get a feel for the OS. My experience has been that hardware that's been around a while is easier to install Linux on as the drivers are already available. Unfortunately, I'm so accustomed to the MS terminology and the underbelly of it's operating systems that learning the Linux way isn't so easy for me. Deciding which "packages" to install and then getting everything configured gets me frustrated now. It took a lot of head banging to figure out MS and all that energy it took has sapped me and taken away my will. Still, I think it's useful as a basic workstation OS in the packages available for the relative novice but is obviously full of potential for the more knowledgeable or determined user. Enjoy.

It's the younger generation that needs to pick up the banner with Linux and run with it. I did download and burn the iso for Knoppix, but for the cheap price of ordering the other two versions I got lazy, lol.

We've both been there since the days of DOS and it's command line functions and switches, so in that we are more at ease with the concept of using it when needed than the younger generation, but like you I'm not particularly interested in learning and remembering a whole new group of commands and their particular peculiarities.

Just like Microsoft finally realized it needed to leave DOS behind or at least hidden in the background, Linux needs to GUI as much as they can too if they want to adequately compete. I do see that change in attitude in the last few years as evidenced by the new versions. It seems the mindset of enough Linux afficianados have changed they are willing to move away from the diehard command line group who have considered Linux their own special system.

In most such cases it's illuminating to compare their S&H charges against the amount printed on the package by USPS, FedEx, etc. All the rest must be "Handling", and remember they use the owner's 15-yr-old kid to do it at 5$ per hr, and it takes even him only 10 seconds to do the whole package.

The Ubuntu site claims a somewhat better deal (ever at the Amazon rate), but we'll see.

The Ultimate Boot CD that came with the Freespire and Ubuntu has a lot of helpful hardware but wouldn't boot using my F9 option to choose the boot medium. It did boot using the older method of entering BIOS and setting CDROM as the first boot device.

Ubuntu - The installed version may be great, but the Live CD is less versatile than a Knoppix Live CD. If wanting just to run a Live CD, download Knoppix instead and burn the ISO disc image onto a CD you've also made bootable. Unbuntu's greatest deficiency as I see it for a Live CD is lack of ability to play many different video and sound codecs. In fact it may only play wave files in the Live CD use, I got tired of looking for others it would play. It will give a screen however to download and install the appropriate codec, which is great if you have it installed on the hard drive, but not sufficient for a Live CD version.

Freespire - Also less than Knoppix for a Live CD, and less than Ubuntu too. Too add to frustation for many will be it's username and password prompt. You'd think anything should work in there if it's a Live CD, or even more you'd not even expect to encounter it at all. Oh, but no, there is a procedure you must follow. Is this procedure on the disc in some text or doc file? Again, no! I found out how to access it after some concentrated googling. To do it, once I hit that part, I had to do CTRL-ALT-F4, at the login type "root" (without quotes), issue passwd command, change the password to anything else, confirm it, press Enter key. Then it took CTRL-ALT-F7 to return to the GUI and enter those values on the login screen. Finally you get the Freespire Live CD to run it's programs.

Again, go with Knoppix if you are looking for an easy to use Live CD version.

but agree Knoppix is decent. My last successful HD installation was with PC Linux. I believe it's Mandrake based. I had no luck with Ubuntu but I lose patience rather quickly at times when things don't go well. My qualification for whether I will continue with an installation/configuration is whether or not I can quickly set up the network and get a browser on line. My home network using static IP addressing which I have found less troublesome than DHCP in that I have two networked printers and a couple wireless devices which are configured for security in the AP. I've found some Linux distributions to be unfriendly in getting them networked with my system. All the numbers will be right but no internet. There is plenty of discussion about this on the web. PC Linux worked and I was also able to set up my two printers fairly easily. One thing I was not able to figure out how to install the latest Firefox version but admit I didn't try for long. The distribution I got with PC Linux was 1.5 which works fairly well anyway.

I ran into that with Freespire last night. Claimed it couldn't find the internet. I put in my router as the gateway, assigned myself an IP I hoped the DHCP would pickup since it was the next number up from the one shown used by all the computers here, got the subnet mask correct, and nothing. Said it couldn't find my NIC at one point. Mine is inbuilt on a Biostar motherboard, M7VIG 400.Yet, when I opened firefox, it was able to detect and access the internet. Same motherboard and no problems with Knoppix. It's not a new motherboard either, transitional socket A with DDR memory. I didn't like the menu on freespire either, I had to manuall clk each subcategory open on it, whereas Knoppix will open as you scroll over. Of course this is just the Live CD versions and the fully installed may be so much better. If they want people to actually install the system though, the Live Cd is what will sell them on it, or not. That said, I'm a bit peeved that Microsoft hasn't come up with a Live CD of their own for Windows, but they do have the next best thing which is booting from it to the Restore/Repair feature now.

could BartPE Live XP CD be the answer?

also works on old 486 machines with 128M of RAM

.,

you have to enable the NIC some way. It doesn't work just because it's recognized and given an address. There's an "on" switch but it's not conveniently located....sort of like putting your garage door button in an upstairs bathroom.

John Wilkerson has a good thread, maybe it's a sticky, over there. There was some long thread about people trying to go back from Vista to XP, and the problems they've run into. Most of them could make it easier since they seem to have bought during the transition phase or shortly afterwards. My daughter's laptop came with XP loaded, but we filed and got the Vista upgrade and also the XP Restore disc for it. She has her choice of either and could set up for double boot later if wanted. My other daughter's boyfriend's computer came with Vista, but I helped him find and order the XP cd's for the same model from HP for just the shipping charge and he's had no problem using those Restore discs to set it up with XP instead. Too many are passing up that cheap alternative not realizing they can get BOTH operating systems and Restore disc that are perfect for their particular model of laptop or desktop.

Use xp's formatting features to set up a partition for Vista, put it there, then never use it.
You're right about the stickys; very useful. (AKA Readmes)

...it's supposed to be easier doing it the other way around with Vista doing that setup. I opened the Premium package today and looked at their small (4x6inch) booklet. Partitioning got one small paragraph, maybe 3 sentences. Before their books assumed you were idiots, now they are assuming everyone is a tech? Anyway, for anyone who is quite the newbie to partitioning a drive, best to seek other sources to study on it first. I don't know about Vista, but those programs that come with new drives still aren't consumer safe when it comes to setting up partitions. You can actually set up partitions then choose cluster sizes that are impossible to properly use in that partition size. I can just see someone setting up a 100G partition and then setting the cluster size to 4KB, LOL. Hopefully Vista avoids that trap. A truly responsible partitioning program would not permit the user to set up a cluster size that was too small for a particular size partition.

I suspect the booklet is insufficient because when Vista is loaded it goes into more depth at that time. Saves printing costs. I plan to load a Basic version on an older computer this coming weekend. I'm thinking about timing it, but setting up partitions first with the drive manufacturer's software. Time it from running the setup file on Vista. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

in the form of unfilled clusters. Example: A 9kb file needs two 8kb clusters, with 7kb wasted. Using 3 4kb clusters wastes only 3kb, in the last one. With many files on a typical HD the savings is significant. None of that matters any more, because storage is so cheap. Nowadays, setting a small cluster size just slows down r/w operations and is harder on the drive components.

You're right about trusting partitioning to the Gateses. The only sure way I know of is Partition Magic ... for $70.