Antivirus

[jambutty]

Well I downloaded and installed the recommended InfraRecorder after setting a System Restore point and downloaded the 6.10 image file. It took about 50 minutes. I always set a System Restore point before installing new software. It sure does save a lot of tears if things go wrong.

Following the instructions on the web site and using InfraRecorder I burned the .iso file to a CD. Guess what? Zilch! It didn’t work at all.

When I try to ‘read’ the CD I am either informed that the free space is 702MB or
H:\ is not accessible.
Incorrect function.

My BIOS bootup settings are Floppy – CD – Hard Drive so it wasn’t that. It couldn’t possibly have been because other bootable CD’s boot up.

Maybe I should have gone for the 6.06.1 version? So I downloaded that as well and that also took about 50 minutes.

It got burned to a CD and ……………….. still zilch!

I’m the first to hold me hand up to suggest that I am doing something wrong but for the life in me I can’t figure out what. I mean its not as if the instructions are complicated - kid of five could do it. Maybe that’s the reason - I’m not a kid of five?

Anyway I sent for the CD to come by post. I can wait. Patience is one of my strong points.

[andrewb]

Originally Posted by jambutty

Following the instructions on the web site and using InfraRecorder I burned the .iso file to a CD. Guess what? Zilch! It didn’t work at all.

When I try to ‘read’ the CD I am either informed that the free space is 702MB or
H:\ is not accessible.
Incorrect function.

Have you ever used InfraRecorder before? It sounds like the cd is not burning properly as you should be able to at least open it from windows (though you have to reboot to get linux to load up).

If you havn't used InfraReader before successfully, then I guess that could be the problem (simply because I have never heard of the program myself) I asked a friend who uses windows and he recommends http://www.cdburnerxp.se/ because it good and free according to him.

It's up to you if you wish to download that and try the 6.10 cd again, or you could just wait it out I guess. (The version that will come through the post is 6.06.1, an older version but offcially supported for longer labeled 'Long Term Support') I would recommend using the 6.10 version from download if I was you though as it is a few months newer.

[entwisi]

May I ask if you burned the ISO file to a CD or burned the 'disc image' to a cd. one just copys the iso file as a single file(which may have failed as it could have been just over the capacity of your CD which are normally 700M), the other to use an analogy 'expands' the iso file onto a CD creating a fully bootable disc.

I'll step back now and let young Mr Cyfr guide you through the joys of Ubuntu.(My preference would have been Knoppix( www.knoppix.org ) or any other KDE based distro as its 'closer' to Windows than Gnome based ones (of which Ubuntu is one). One of the wonderful thing about Linux is that there is choice in nearly every single aspect of it, you try a few and see which ones suit the way your brain works, we are all different and what seems natural to one is awkward to another. I know Cyfr likes Gnome, I prefer KDE.[1]

Anyway good luck on your journey of discovery....



[1] GNOME - KDE are window managers , think of them as extreme 'themes' where you setup how your GUI desktop looks and behaves. Have a google for Gnome desktop images and KDE desktop images

[andrewb]

Sorry ignore my last post, I've tried InfraRecorder and it works fine.

Did you use "Actions > Burn Image" from the menu then select the downloaded Ubuntu iso file?

I did it this way and it burned sucessfully for me.

[jambutty]

Thanks for that entwisi – you may be correct in your assumption. I use Paragon for my OS partition image so I am more or less familiar with the concept of images.

The file/s in question being:
ubuntu-6.06.1-desktop-i386.iso 715,172 KB ISO File
ubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso 715,130 KB ISO File

When burning I had the option of:
Disc Images (*.iso, *.cue) which I selected, or
Raw Images (*.bin, *raw) or
All Files (*.*)

I was led to believe from the web site that the image file would ‘unpack’ (if that’s the right expression) itself whilst burning.

To answer your question Cyfr – yes I did. I followed the instructions on the web site and that’s what they were.

I have also used Infra Recorder to burn some normal files onto a CD and they went on OK so my CD drive is OK and so is IR. I even went as far as to use a re-write able CD to write normal stuff to, re formatted it and then tried the .iso file. But that only proved that the CD was OK because I did not end up with a bootable CD.

There was something on the web site about downloading some software that verifies the checksum of the download so I’m going to go down that road because it is always possible that the .iso files that I downloaded got corrupted somehow or something was missed off. It’s a long shot because the download does it’s own verification after download and everything seemed to go OK.

At the end of all this I will have a good selection of coasters or round emergency shaving mirrors or bird scarers for a freshly seeded lawn. Going cheap! Er! Actually it is the birds that go cheep so the CD's will be free.

[jambutty]

The CD from Ubuntu arrived this morning and it was the 6.10 version.

However prior to its arrival I had already solved the problem of InfraRecorder not burning the CD properly. By that I mean to ‘unpacking’ the .iso rather than burning the .iso file to CD. The instructions on the web site are wrong or maybe incomplete.

Somewhere from the darkest recesses of my ancient brain I dragged out that Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 will ‘unpack’ and burn an .iso file so I tried that and lo and behold I ended up with a bootable CD.

Booting from the CD takes forever and a couple of days but once Linux was up I felt right at home. It has an Amiga ‘feel’ about it in that there were drop down menus to access the various programmes and the desktop was almost empty. I like that!

It is difficult to assess Linux running from a CD because a CD drive is nowhere near as fast as a hard drive and of course I couldn’t access the Internet, nor my secondary hard drive. The other problem would be with PageStream, a DTP programme, Audio Cleaning Lab and one or two other programmes that I use. There isn’t a version that runs on Linux. Being a different OS to Windows it obviously would not be affected by the hundreds of thousands of ‘nasties’ that can infect the normal PC, which is a plus.

I suppose that I could allocate a spare partition to use to boot up on Linux but in all honesty it would be a bit of a waste of hard drive space.

It was an interesting experiment and worth all the hassle because it brought to my attention that my CD/DVD re-writer was dicky when burning a DVD.

[entwisi]

Originally Posted by jambutty

Booting from the CD takes forever and a couple of days but once Linux was up I felt right at home. It has an Amiga ‘feel’ about it in that there were drop down menus to access the various programmes and the desktop was almost empty. I like that!

Mmm, my laptop will boot from a live CD to a working system in ~4-5 mins tops? was it longer than that?

Originally Posted by jambutty

It is difficult to assess Linux running from a CD because a CD drive is nowhere near as fast as a hard drive and of course I couldn’t access the Internet, nor my secondary hard drive.

How do you connect to the net then? I've used ubuntu, Knoppix and Gentoo live Cds over the last couple of months and each time they have automagically setup my wifi card with no problems whatsoever. and access to your second hard disk is built in, you just need to mount it (usually by double clicking the device icon on the desktop)

Originally Posted by jambutty

The other problem would be with PageStream, a DTP programme, Audio Cleaning Lab and one or two other programmes that I use. There isn’t a version that runs on Linux. Being a different OS to Windows it obviously would not be affected by the hundreds of thousands of ‘nasties’ that can infect the normal PC, which is a plus.

Pagestream is available for Linux and there is Scibus which is well respected, Audio cleaning lab can be replaced by Gnome Wave Cleaner. You need to get past teh idea of "I want this windows program" and more " I need to do this, what softawre will do it for me"

Linux isn't windows (and thankfully never will be)

Originally Posted by jambutty

I suppose that I could allocate a spare partition to use to boot up on Linux but in all honesty it would be a bit of a waste of hard drive space.

It was an interesting experiment and worth all the hassle because it brought to my attention that my CD/DVD re-writer was dicky when burning a DVD.

I actually thought that as an ex Amiga user you would fall into it quite well, ah well, never mind

[andrewb]

I'm glad it worked for you in the end. It does take a long time to load from CD, especialy if you don't have a large amount of ram.

edit: removed my post 'cause entwisi beat me to it.

[jambutty]

I didn’t actually time it but I guess about 5 minutes is about right. It just seemed like forever and two days. Time only flies when you are enjoying yourself.

How do you connect to the net then?

Well I get a bit of string and thoroughly wet it and plug one end into the phone socket and the other end into a USB port on my computer. Sadly that doesn’t work so I do it the regular way – phone socket – router – USB port and ran the BT CD to set things up.

Rightly or wrongly I reasoned that as I was booting up on a CD that couldn’t be written to there was no point in setting up an Internet connection and mounting the second hard drive or doing anything else that would require something to be written to the OS. I have no doubt that had I installed Linux to hard drive it would have worked fine.

I will leave Linux on my mental back burner for now and if it comes to pass that my current computer dies on me, rather than going for (apologies for swearing) Vista - I will go down the Linux Road.

In the meantime I’ll stick with what I have.

Thanks for all the help. It is much appreciated.

[Lolly]

I've just downloaded Ad-aware SE, and have no idea what to do with the objects detected have read the help menu but it says not everything needs to be deleted. But I have no idea what needs to be and what doesnt. Any help??

[chav1]

download this its much better

http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

[Lolly]

Have already downloaded and done a scan on ad-aware, so still want to know how to use it.

[chav1]

been a while since i used it but there shoud be 2 options either qurentine or fix

if you click fix it will display a warning that teh files are going to be deleted

you then click yes and it deletes the bad files

usualy with adaware it will say some of teh operations can not be completed until after a system reboot


run adaware again to be sure it has removed them

[harwood red]

Lolly after the scan has run click on scan summary and tick the boxes for tracking cookies and mru list then click ok to remove

[Lolly]

So just those two then? I have others, do I not need to remove the rest?