[gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[CJoeB]

Hi everyone,

First, thanks for all the input regarding CFLAGS.

Can I be honest here?  My technical skills don't seem to be anywhere
near on a par with most of the people on this list.  I've been using
Gentoo since 2004 and the reason I do, is for the control that I have
over my system.

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.

If I am a "chicken shit" and still want Linux, I could install another
distro, like Kubuntu, where you can be almost brain dead and still get a
running Linux system, but then I would sacrifice the control that I know
and love about Gentoo.  I'm not willing to do that either .... at least
not without a fight.

I've always managed to get my Gentoo system running and maintained, but
I've always used an x86 iso and stage 3.  I've googled and didn't really
find a definitive answer to my question so, I am bowing to the experts
on this list and asking you guys to bear with me and help me out.

What would you recommend that I used for the iso an stage 3?  As a
reminder my computer is a Dell XPS 8300 with an Intel Core -i7-2600
processor.  I'm a little confused between the choices x86 (which seems
to only apply to Pentium 4 systems and only utilizes 32-bit processing),
amd64 and ia64.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Colleen

-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[William Kenworthy]

On Fri, 2011-07-22 at 21:53 -0400, CJoeB wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> First, thanks for all the input regarding CFLAGS.
> 
> Can I be honest here?  My technical skills don't seem to be anywhere
> near on a par with most of the people on this list.  I've been using
> Gentoo since 2004 and the reason I do, is for the control that I have
> over my system.
> 
> 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.
> 
> If I am a "chicken shit" and still want Linux, I could install another
> distro, like Kubuntu, where you can be almost brain dead and still get a
> running Linux system, but then I would sacrifice the control that I know
> and love about Gentoo.  I'm not willing to do that either .... at least
> not without a fight.
> 
> I've always managed to get my Gentoo system running and maintained, but
> I've always used an x86 iso and stage 3.  I've googled and didn't really
> find a definitive answer to my question so, I am bowing to the experts
> on this list and asking you guys to bear with me and help me out.
> 
> What would you recommend that I used for the iso an stage 3?  As a
> reminder my computer is a Dell XPS 8300 with an Intel Core -i7-2600
> processor.  I'm a little confused between the choices x86 (which seems
> to only apply to Pentium 4 systems and only utilizes 32-bit processing),
> amd64 and ia64.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Colleen
> 

An option that might sidestep any warranty issues could be to install
linux into virtualbox/vmware etc and run it on a barebones win7 - with
the power of an i7  and it running full screen, you would not even
notice its not on the bare metal!

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 6:53 PM, CJoeB <colleen.beamer@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> First, thanks for all the input regarding CFLAGS.
>
> Can I be honest here?  My technical skills don't seem to be anywhere
> near on a par with most of the people on this list.  I've been using
> Gentoo since 2004 and the reason I do, is for the control that I have
> over my system.
>
> 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.
>
> If I am a "chicken shit" and still want Linux, I could install another
> distro, like Kubuntu, where you can be almost brain dead and still get a
> running Linux system, but then I would sacrifice the control that I know
> and love about Gentoo.  I'm not willing to do that either .... at least
> not without a fight.
>
> I've always managed to get my Gentoo system running and maintained, but
> I've always used an x86 iso and stage 3.  I've googled and didn't really
> find a definitive answer to my question so, I am bowing to the experts
> on this list and asking you guys to bear with me and help me out.
>
> What would you recommend that I used for the iso an stage 3?  As a
> reminder my computer is a Dell XPS 8300 with an Intel Core -i7-2600
> processor.  I'm a little confused between the choices x86 (which seems
> to only apply to Pentium 4 systems and only utilizes 32-bit processing),
> amd64 and ia64.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Regards,
>
> Colleen
>
> --
>
> Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org

Hi Colleen,
   I'm not sure I understand the warranty issue so take this with a
grain of salt but most of the pre-configured Windows machines I've
received in the last couple of years had some disk space left over
outside  of the Windows C drive. I'm sure you could install Gentoo on
one of those and not void anything, assuming you have one.

   If you don't then you could do all the Windows install they require
and then generate your recovery disks Once you've got the recovery
disks you're in pretty good shape to set everything back up like it
was when you got it. I don't see how that could void a warranty.

   William's comment about running Gentoo in a VM is very valid.

   There really aren't any specific 64-bit things I'm aware of that
you need to choose. It's all pretty generic these days, at least with
the Intel processors. I've not used an AMD processor in a while. Boot
from pretty much any Linux Live CD and then do the stage 3 install and
you should be fine. ia64 isn't TTBOMK knowledge something you need to
pay attention to. All my Intel i5 & i7 machines are amd64 stable with
a few ~amd64 packages.

   One note about the Sandy Bridge processor is reight now it does
require a specific CFLAG setting to get everything to build correctly
due to a gcc bug.

   As for any other distro, once you use Gentoo you won't be happy
elsewhere. ;-) Stick with Gentoo, most especially since you have all
the hardware power you need to build code at world class speed.

Hope this helps,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[CJoeB]

On 07/22/11 23:07, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 6:53 PM, CJoeB <colleen.beamer@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> What would you recommend that I used for the iso an stage 3?  As a
>> reminder my computer is a Dell XPS 8300 with an Intel Core -i7-2600
>> processor.  I'm a little confused between the choices x86 (which seems
>> to only apply to Pentium 4 systems and only utilizes 32-bit processing),
>> amd64 and ia64.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Colleen
>>
>> --
>>
>> Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
> Hi Colleen,
>    I'm not sure I understand the warranty issue so take this with a
> grain of salt but most of the pre-configured Windows machines I've
> received in the last couple of years had some disk space left over
> outside  of the Windows C drive. I'm sure you could install Gentoo on
> one of those and not void anything, assuming you have one.
The thing is, I don't want Windows on the computer at all.  My laptop is
4 years old and it was booted into Windows once and that was only
because I didn't hit the F2 key fast enough to get into the bios to
change the boot order.  Then, Windows got removed completely.

The computer I am getting is a desktop for home use and everything I
need is in Linux.  I don't want to have to put up with all the "pain in
the ass" stuff Windows puts you through.  I have to put up with Windows
all day at work and it's like a breath of fresh air when I can come home
to my Linux system.
>    William's comment about running Gentoo in a VM is very valid.
I've never installed a virtual machine so wouldn't even know how to go
about it.
>    There really aren't any specific 64-bit things I'm aware of that
> you need to choose. It's all pretty generic these days, at least with
> the Intel processors. I've not used an AMD processor in a while. Boot
> from pretty much any Linux Live CD and then do the stage 3 install and
> you should be fine. ia64 isn't TTBOMK knowledge something you need to
> pay attention to. All my Intel i5 & i7 machines are amd64 stable with
> a few ~amd64 packages.
So, if I choose the amd64 iso and Stage 3, it doesn't have to be on an
AMD machine?
>    One note about the Sandy Bridge processor is reight now it does
> require a specific CFLAG setting to get everything to build correctly
> due to a gcc bug.

So how do I know if it's a Sandy Bridge processor?  Nothing in the specs
that I read says it's anything more than and Intel i-7.
>    As for any other distro, once you use Gentoo you won't be happy
> elsewhere. ;-) Stick with Gentoo, most especially since you have all
> the hardware power you need to build code at world class speed.

I *have* tried other distros - first Redhat, then Fedora, then Kubuntu
and you're right ... I wouldn't be happy with anything but Gentoo!  I
started my Linux journey in 2000, went to Gentoo in 2004 and have always
been happy with it.

The question is not really whether I will install Gentoo, but more about
choosing the correct iso and Stage 3 because I don't want to get into a
pickle that I can't handle.

Regards,

Colleen



-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mick]

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On Saturday 23 Jul 2011 14:28:32 CJoeB wrote:

> The thing is, I don't want Windows on the computer at all.  My laptop is
> 4 years old and it was booted into Windows once and that was only
> because I didn't hit the F2 key fast enough to get into the bios to
> change the boot order.  Then, Windows got removed completely.
> 
> The computer I am getting is a desktop for home use and everything I
> need is in Linux.  I don't want to have to put up with all the "pain in
> the ass" stuff Windows puts you through.  I have to put up with Windows
> all day at work and it's like a breath of fresh air when I can come home
> to my Linux system.

In that case you can create a back up of all the OEM partitions as I suggested 
and then wipe the drive clean and install gentoo.

If things break you'll have to replace components yourself - to be honest 
unless a CPU/MoBo goes bad on you it is relatively cheap to by a drive or PSU 
these days.

In other words, consider yourself self-insured and definitely don't waste any 
money on extended warranties.


> >    William's comment about running Gentoo in a VM is very valid.
> 
> I've never installed a virtual machine so wouldn't even know how to go
> about it.

There's loads of howtos in Google for this.  It is not difficult at all (most 
of the times) but there is no reason to boot into MSWindows only to run 
Gentoo!  


> >    There really aren't any specific 64-bit things I'm aware of that
> > 
> > you need to choose. It's all pretty generic these days, at least with
> > the Intel processors. I've not used an AMD processor in a while. Boot
> > from pretty much any Linux Live CD and then do the stage 3 install and
> > you should be fine. ia64 isn't TTBOMK knowledge something you need to
> > pay attention to. All my Intel i5 & i7 machines are amd64 stable with
> > a few ~amd64 packages.
> 
> So, if I choose the amd64 iso and Stage 3, it doesn't have to be on an
> AMD machine?

Correct, you will use this iso (or systemrescueCD or Knoppix) and a Staqe 3 
equivalent to build a system on an Intel 64bit CPU.


> >    One note about the Sandy Bridge processor is reight now it does
> > 
> > require a specific CFLAG setting to get everything to build correctly
> > due to a gcc bug.
> 
> So how do I know if it's a Sandy Bridge processor?  Nothing in the specs
> that I read says it's anything more than and Intel i-7.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge#Desktop_processors

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Grant Edwards]

On 2011-07-23, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:

> If things break you'll have to replace components yourself - to be
> honest unless a CPU/MoBo goes bad on you it is relatively cheap to by
> a drive or PSU these days.

If something breaks (aside from the hard drive), send it in for repair
without the hard drive.  That's what I did with my IBM Thinkpad a few
years back, and IBM couldn't have cared less.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! I want to read my new
                                  at               poem about pork brains and
                              gmail.com            outer space ...

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 23 July 2011 16:11:20 Mick did opine thusly:
> > So, if I choose the amd64 iso and Stage 3, it doesn't have to be
> > on an AMD machine?
> 
> Correct, you will use this iso (or systemrescueCD or Knoppix) and a
> Staqe 3  equivalent to build a system on an Intel 64bit CPU.

Just to flesh it out a bit more:

The name amd64 came about because it's the 64 bit instruction set that 
AMD designed for their 64-bit chips. There was an earlier 64 bit cpu 
from Intel, but we don't talk about it anymore (and it has nothing to 
do with this topic).

Anyway, the name is a nod to the company that designed it, and has 
nothing to do with the manufacturer of your CPU. Intel later had to 
eat humble pie and implement AMD's design just to stay relevant in the 
market, that's why 64 bit Intel chips run on an architecture that 
Gentoo calls amd64.

The 32 bit design is called x86 because that was the general name in 
use for 20+ years prior. Most other distros call the amd64 design by 
the name x86_64 or similar, Gentoo is the most visible exception.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[CJoeB]

On 07/23/11 18:24, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Saturday 23 July 2011 16:11:20 Mick did opine thusly:
>>> So, if I choose the amd64 iso and Stage 3, it doesn't have to be
>>> on an AMD machine?
>> Correct, you will use this iso (or systemrescueCD or Knoppix) and a
>> Staqe 3  equivalent to build a system on an Intel 64bit CPU.
> Just to flesh it out a bit more:
>
> The name amd64 came about because it's the 64 bit instruction set that 
> AMD designed for their 64-bit chips. There was an earlier 64 bit cpu 
> from Intel, but we don't talk about it anymore (and it has nothing to 
> do with this topic).
>
> Anyway, the name is a nod to the company that designed it, and has 
> nothing to do with the manufacturer of your CPU. Intel later had to 
> eat humble pie and implement AMD's design just to stay relevant in the 
> market, that's why 64 bit Intel chips run on an architecture that 
> Gentoo calls amd64.
>
> The 32 bit design is called x86 because that was the general name in 
> use for 20+ years prior. Most other distros call the amd64 design by 
> the name x86_64 or similar, Gentoo is the most visible exception.

Thanks for this, Alan!  And thanks to all for the responses.

Honestly, I wasn't so much worried about the hardware breaking.  I took
the leap and wiped Windows off my laptop and never had any issues.  But
I've never dealt with 64-bit stuff and I wanted to make sure that I made
the right choices.  Thanks to the feedback from this list, I am
confident that I can.  If I run into any problems, this will be the
first place I turn!  :-)

Warranty is not a super huge issue.  The computer I got was a super good
deal - it came with 1 year warranty, but I never purchased extended
warranty.  And to be honest, I've had a total of 4 Dell computers and
never had any hardware issues at all (touch wood!).  My laptop is 4
years old and I've reinstalled Gentoo on it about 3 times - the original
install, once because I screwed up the MBR when I hit the "media" button
instead of the power button and then recently when I kept getting blocks
for KDE packages and KDE had gone to KDE SC.

Thanks, again! :-)

Colleen


-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mike Edenfield]

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.

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.

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.

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.

> What would you recommend that I used for the iso an stage 3?  As a
> reminder my computer is a Dell XPS 8300 with an Intel Core -i7-2600
> processor.  I'm a little confused between the choices x86 (which seems
> to only apply to Pentium 4 systems and only utilizes 32-bit processing),
> amd64 and ia64.

"x86" is the name for 32-bit PC processor architecture, such 
as the older Pentium family, that has been around for 
decades. (They originally had Intel model numbers like 8086, 
80386, 80486, etc.) Very few new PCs are x86 natively, but 
they will run programs that are meant for x86 machines. This 
one will "work" on your Core i7 but is probably not the best 
choice.

"amd64" is the name for the 64-bit PC processor 
architecture, like the Intel Core family processor you have. 
This is what you'll want to get for your machine. (It's 
called "amd64" in Gentoo because it was originally produced 
by AMD, but Intel and AMD's current 64-bit processors are 
compatible and run the same software. Other operating 
systems call this "x64", but it's the same exact hardware.) 
An x64-based CPU will run x86 programs, but for a 
source-based distribution like Gentoo there isn't really 
much benefit to doing so.

"ia64" is an older and mostly-obsolete Intel attempt at 
64-bit processing that was completely incompatible with x86, 
and came and went very quickly. You can ignore it.

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mick]

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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 OS 
partition and install Gentoo in the recovered disk space.  See more on this 
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.
> 
> 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 
telephone with some support person in a foreign country, who's reading from a 
script and keeps asking you to reboot the machine or run the Dell diagnostics 
<aheam!> spyware that originally came with it!

I seem to recall a case where a user wiped their drive clean and installed 
Ubuntu or some such.  The laptop went faulty and the person asked for it to be 
repaired/replaced under warranty, only to be told that this could not be 
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 the 
laptop, but is this something you would want to have to argue through just so 
that they fix your *new* machine?

Plus, there may be a legal and legitimate case for Dell to refuse to 
a)diagnose the problem without the OEM software and OS installed; and b)they 
could potentially argue that your Linux OS and your configuration could have 
somehow hammered the drive/NIC/Video card etc to the point of causing a 
hardware failure.  I couldn't blame them for not wanting to look into your 
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 
get into BIOS to enable booting from DVD drive, before the Dell FreeDOS system 
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 
partition.  (There were 3 partitions in total: Dell recovery OS, a MSWindows 
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 Gentoo 
only.

I decided to have a dual boot system, rather than having to restore from 
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/want 
more than that.  Now boot fully into Windows 7 and let it run chkdsk *without* 
interrupting it (takes ages).  Once you make sure your Windows 7 can boot up 
and works as promised you can move on with installing Gentoo.

6. Created new partitions (swap, /boot, /, /home, /var, /usr/portage), 
formatted them and then installed Gentoo as per the guidebook.  Except for 
installing GRUB.

7. I installed GRUB in the /boot partition, *not* in the MBR of /dev/sda - 
just in case Dell were to decided to decline support because I interfered with 
the MBR.  Instead I used the Windows 7 boot loader to chainload my GRUB boot 
code.  For details on this you can have a look here:  

 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/227265

YMMV because Dell and MSWindows may have changed the way the do things at 
first run. So please don't blame me if the above suggestions don't work out 
for you!  ;-)

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mike Edenfield]

On 7/23/2011 7:47 AM, Mick wrote:
> On Saturday 23 Jul 2011 07:25:42 Mike Edenfield wrote:

> I seem to recall a case where a user wiped their drive clean and installed
> Ubuntu or some such.  The laptop went faulty and the person asked for it to be
> repaired/replaced under warranty, only to be told that this could not be
> honoured without the original OS on the machine!  I think it was this one:

I'm actually speaking from experience here: the first thing 
I did on my Inspiron was wipe the HD and install Gentoo, 
only to learn that the wireless card was faulty. And since I 
could not run the standard Windows diagnostics they couldn't 
(wouldn't?) help me.

So I booted the restore CD, put Windows back, and got a new 
NIC within about a week.

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:55:11 -0400, Mike Edenfield wrote:

> I'm actually speaking from experience here: the first thing 
> I did on my Inspiron was wipe the HD and install Gentoo, 
> only to learn that the wireless card was faulty. And since I 
> could not run the standard Windows diagnostics they couldn't 
> (wouldn't?) help me.
> 
> So I booted the restore CD, put Windows back, and got a new 
> NIC within about a week.

What would you have done if the hard drive had failed?

I always image the windows disk and then wipe it, but I'm aware that
this is not completely reliable. some failures make restoration
impossible.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 1: Microsoft Works

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mick]

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On Saturday 23 Jul 2011 17:49:53 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:55:11 -0400, Mike Edenfield wrote:
> > I'm actually speaking from experience here: the first thing
> > I did on my Inspiron was wipe the HD and install Gentoo,
> > only to learn that the wireless card was faulty. And since I
> > could not run the standard Windows diagnostics they couldn't
> > (wouldn't?) help me.
> > 
> > So I booted the restore CD, put Windows back, and got a new
> > NIC within about a week.
> 
> What would you have done if the hard drive had failed?
> 
> I always image the windows disk and then wipe it, but I'm aware that
> this is not completely reliable. some failures make restoration
> impossible.

Yes, that's why I usually install Gentoo as a dual boot on a new machine.

On the other hand, if the drive is dead what is Dell/HP/etc going to do?  Take 
it apart and run forensics on the platters?  O_O
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 23 July 2011 18:35:20 Mick did opine thusly:
> On Saturday 23 Jul 2011 17:49:53 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:55:11 -0400, Mike Edenfield wrote:
> > > I'm actually speaking from experience here: the first thing
> > > I did on my Inspiron was wipe the HD and install Gentoo,
> > > only to learn that the wireless card was faulty. And since I
> > > could not run the standard Windows diagnostics they couldn't
> > > (wouldn't?) help me.
> > > 
> > > So I booted the restore CD, put Windows back, and got a new
> > > NIC within about a week.
> > 
> > What would you have done if the hard drive had failed?
> > 
> > I always image the windows disk and then wipe it, but I'm aware
> > that this is not completely reliable. some failures make
> > restoration impossible.
> 
> Yes, that's why I usually install Gentoo as a dual boot on a new
> machine.
> 
> On the other hand, if the drive is dead what is Dell/HP/etc going to
> do?  Take it apart and run forensics on the platters?  

They tried that with us once. But only once. They got a response 
something like 

"We buy in excess of 5,000 servers from you per year. Are you really 
going to quibble about one measly notebook drive?"

In Dell's defense, I honestly think the rep on the phone was new and 
recently headhunted away from HP. He hadn't yet been grooved into how 
stuff really works.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mike Edenfield]

On 7/23/2011 12:49 PM, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:55:11 -0400, Mike Edenfield wrote:
>
>> I'm actually speaking from experience here: the first thing
>> I did on my Inspiron was wipe the HD and install Gentoo,
>> only to learn that the wireless card was faulty. And since I
>> could not run the standard Windows diagnostics they couldn't
>> (wouldn't?) help me.
>>
>> So I booted the restore CD, put Windows back, and got a new
>> NIC within about a week.
>
> What would you have done if the hard drive had failed?
>
> I always image the windows disk and then wipe it, but I'm aware that
> this is not completely reliable. some failures make restoration
> impossible.

If the hard drive failed to the point that I couldn't 
restore it to factory defaults I suspect they would have a 
hard time telling if I was running Windows or not :)

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 14:46:25 -0400, Mike Edenfield wrote:

> > What would you have done if the hard drive had failed?
> >
> > I always image the windows disk and then wipe it, but I'm aware that
> > this is not completely reliable. some failures make restoration
> > impossible.  
> 
> If the hard drive failed to the point that I couldn't 
> restore it to factory defaults I suspect they would have a 
> hard time telling if I was running Windows or not :)

In that case, true. But there are other failures that would not affect
the hard drive directly but would prevent you restoring it (without
removing the drive which may invalidate the warranty).

I'm not saying don't do it, I do it myself, but it is not a certain way
of avoiding warranty problems.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

How do I set my laser printer to stun?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Philip Webb]

You've had some very good advice from Mike + Mick,
but you can have a bit more re-assurance from me.

You shouldn't have a warranty problem if you keep Windows 7 installed.
For that, you can easily install Gentoo alongside it.
I did that with my Asus netbook, which came with XP :
I got XP to tell me how much disk space it was using,
then used Systemrescue to shrink the partition to about twice that much
-- to be safe & allow for some personal files or programs,
if I ever used Windows for anything -- ,
then installed Gentoo on the remainder (most) of the disk.
I used Lilo to dual-boot & XP still works.
There was an extra Windows partition which I wiped out,
but that didn't affect the ordinary booting of XP.

Linux is far better than Losedows & Gentoo the best distro
provided you're prepared to put in a bit of time maintaining it.

HTH

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Allan Gottlieb]

On Fri, Jul 22 2011, 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.

You have already received much good advice.  I would add that dell
support is often happier if you are running windows.  So I always set up
a dual boot configuration with only a small windows partition.  I
*always* get media from dell to reinstall windows if needed.

In the old days the dell media took the entire disk for windows, but
this is much better now and partitions (and hence dual booting) are
supported.

Good luck.
allan