From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Qkagj-0006cE-2J for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:48:09 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 8299121C1B8; Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:47:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ww0-f53.google.com (mail-ww0-f53.google.com [74.125.82.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8DC7421C170 for ; Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:46:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wwf26 with SMTP id 26so2612582wwf.10 for ; Sat, 23 Jul 2011 04:46:43 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:reply-to:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; bh=DkDGnFVU7QBQuM5h2s63mssHPQqAxwqbHB/dpqWVD84=; b=bWFFzb6nhdRx+5XrHsJayICnG1mIMNrI6xf+3bkvT6rIw+lq2UCqEQ8uek1L5xsEq9 lfui3r+i0/7AZMiRXeQ29NhKxKTulLM/8hP7y+qWYdya4rgztLnjWT3hdodlh4o2I2Jz PV2BDIIYlRVbcsQzoCXZJRBpMPh7NGeKpGfMM= Received: by 10.216.81.8 with SMTP id l8mr2149397wee.46.1311421602678; Sat, 23 Jul 2011 04:46:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dell_xps.localnet (230.3.169.217.in-addr.arpa [217.169.3.230]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id r48sm2119566weq.2.2011.07.23.04.46.40 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sat, 23 Jul 2011 04:46:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Mick To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:47:16 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.7 (Linux/2.6.38-gentoo-r6; KDE/4.6.3; x86_64; ; ) References: <4E2A297D.4070709@gmail.com> <4E2A6966.2020409@kutulu.org> In-Reply-To: <4E2A6966.2020409@kutulu.org> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart3844706.PXo8955GQ6"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201107231247.27328.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: fea767093e49a9f843f61b30a166adab --nextPart3844706.PXo8955GQ6 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Saturday 23 Jul 2011 07:25:42 Mike Edenfield wrote: > On 7/22/2011 9:53 PM, CJoeB wrote: > > Because this will be a new computer and I may essentially void the > > warranty if I alter the pre-configuration, I seriously thought about > > leaving the status quo and putting up with Windows 7. However, I would > > lose practically as much as losing my first born! I would have to put > > up with all the things that bug me about Windows and I wouldn't have all > > the programs that I love in Linux. No you don't *have* to put up with Windows 7 - you can shrink the Windows O= S=20 partition and install Gentoo in the recovered disk space. See more on this= =20 below. > If you are truly concerned about the warranty issue then you > would, of course, want to have someone read the actual > warrant paperwork that you have. However, typically the only > way to void a hardware warranty is to tamper with the hardware. >=20 > If you replace Windows with Linux on a new PC, you will may > lose any free technical support (for software, drivers, etc( > you may be entitled to as long as you continue to run this > "unsupported" condition. But if you actually have faulty > hardware, they aren't going to refuse to replace or repair > it just because you installed software. Plus, Dell in > particular "supports" Linux in a marginally useful way on > some of their laptops, so they do have self-help information > that would be relevant to you on their site. Strictly speaking this may be true, however, you try and reason over the=20 telephone with some support person in a foreign country, who's reading from= a=20 script and keeps asking you to reboot the machine or run the Dell diagnosti= cs=20 spyware that originally came with it! I seem to recall a case where a user wiped their drive clean and installed= =20 Ubuntu or some such. The laptop went faulty and the person asked for it to= be=20 repaired/replaced under warranty, only to be told that this could not be=20 honoured without the original OS on the machine! I think it was this one: http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/114250 I believe that after the media got involved the OEM backtracked and fixed t= he=20 laptop, but is this something you would want to have to argue through just = so=20 that they fix your *new* machine? Plus, there may be a legal and legitimate case for Dell to refuse to=20 a)diagnose the problem without the OEM software and OS installed; and b)the= y=20 could potentially argue that your Linux OS and your configuration could hav= e=20 somehow hammered the drive/NIC/Video card etc to the point of causing a=20 hardware failure. I couldn't blame them for not wanting to look into your= =20 hdparm settings or what not. ;-) > In the worst case, if you needed to ship your machine back > to the manufacturer for repairs, you should receive a set of > restore media with any new PC that would allow you to put > your system back to factory default, and make your > manufacturer more than satisfied. These days the restore media are often on a separate partition on the drive. This is what I did with my Dell as soon as I got it: 1. Burned a SystemRescue CD. 2. Booted the laptop with the CD. Note: You should immediately press F2 to= =20 get into BIOS to enable booting from DVD drive, before the Dell FreeDOS sys= tem=20 boots up and the Dell Windows 7 install script starts running). 3. Used PartImage or dd or similar to create back up images for each Dell=20 partition. (There were 3 partitions in total: Dell recovery OS, a MSWindow= s=20 boot partition and the main Windows 7 OS partition.) 4. Then you need to decide if you're going with a dual boot system, or Gent= oo=20 only. I decided to have a dual boot system, rather than having to restore from=20 scratch if there was a warranty claim. So here is what I did next: 5. Used qparted to shrink Windows 7 to something like 50G - you may need/wa= nt=20 more than that. Now boot fully into Windows 7 and let it run chkdsk *witho= ut*=20 interrupting it (takes ages). Once you make sure your Windows 7 can boot u= p=20 and works as promised you can move on with installing Gentoo. 6. Created new partitions (swap, /boot, /, /home, /var, /usr/portage),=20 formatted them and then installed Gentoo as per the guidebook. Except for= =20 installing GRUB. 7. I installed GRUB in the /boot partition, *not* in the MBR of /dev/sda -= =20 just in case Dell were to decided to decline support because I interfered w= ith=20 the MBR. Instead I used the Windows 7 boot loader to chainload my GRUB boo= t=20 code. For details on this you can have a look here: =20 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/227265 YMMV because Dell and MSWindows may have changed the way the do things at=20 first run. So please don't blame me if the above suggestions don't work out= =20 for you! ;-) HTH. =2D-=20 Regards, Mick --nextPart3844706.PXo8955GQ6 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEABECAAYFAk4qtM8ACgkQVTDTR3kpaLZCTgCfSINwOkcXiL5nvFeGXfoNZECb Q+kAoNJuWK5qeLLlQedWW266iH6u1Inu =COES -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart3844706.PXo8955GQ6--