No more Windows Vista :)

I have fallen sick and have been at home for the past week or so. I took this opportunity to remove Windows Vista Home Premium that came with my laptop. I was thinking about this for sometime now and the only thing that was stopping me was time.

Now that I had the time, I removed Vista and made Ubuntu my primary Operating System. In the process I have freed close to 50GB of disk space 15 GB on which Vista was installed and the remaining which it did not allow me to move to a different partition.

Please note that this is a decision after about one year of using my laptop. I was able to do all that I wanted to do on Ubuntu. I found that I logged into Vista only to update it. And more recently stopped the updates as well. Even after SP1 Vista was not that great. Yes, it was usable though.

So I have decided to try out different flavors of Linux on a different partition. I will retain Ubuntu as my primary OS until the time where it behaves so badly so as to get kicked out. I am currently trying out OpenSUSE 11 KDE 4 and my once upon a time sweet heart – Mandriva Linux One Spring 2008 KDE. I am also planning to try the GNOME version of Mandriva.

Windows Vista SP1: Good

The Decision

After mulling over for a few days, I installed Windows Vista SP1 today. I was thinking whether or not to go on this expedition since I did not want to spoil my weekend. But the sluggish performance of Vista on my laptop and the promised improvements made me jump on the decision to go ahead and install SP1.

The SP can be downloaded from the Microsoft website – click on Download Center link on the Related Links section – or you can wait until it appears on your Windows Update. I took the download route. The file is about 435 MB in size.

Machine Specifications

Model: Dell Inspiron 6400

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 @1.73 MHz

RAM: 1 GB

Audio: SigmaTel

HDD: Primary Drive is C: and is 50 GB in size

Optical Drive: TSST Corp

Graphics: Intel 945 GMA

Card Reader: Ricoh Co Ltd

Vista Flavor: Windows Vista Home Premium

Other Software: McAfee Internet Security, Roxio Creator DE 9, OpenOffice.org 2.3

Installation

The installation took an hour and forty minutes with three reboots in all. Post installation I also removed most of the crap that came pre-installed. I should have done this long ago but found the time today. One major irritant was Dell Media Direct which had one component called PCMService with a huge memory leak which brings the computer down to its knees after using for about an hour.

Whats Improved?

Post installation I checked all my hardware and software and compared them with the experience prior to SP1 installation

Hardware: Every piece of hardware worked. No problems with audio or graphics or even the Dell Quickset programs which are used for operating the volume and media buttons in the front.

Login: No change. Still takes the usual two minutes. I think this would have to be the highest time taken by a modern OS to boot up.

Explorer: Drastic Improvements. I must say that for the first time I found Explorer on Vista usable. No stalling until the progress bar disappears on the address bar. Folders open with ease and no stress was noticed when opening multiple Explorer windows. Almost everything thats got to do with Explorer has improved. For example, the Control Panel loads faster than it did previously.

Other Programs: Programs load much faster. Open and Save dialogs also reflect the same speed as Explorer. I get a feeling they use the same component as Explorer.

Media Center: Though I don’t use this, I opened to see how things have improved. I should say quite a lot has improved. Just as in explorer, the buttons and the menus respond beautifully. I used to struggle to go back and forth in Media Center prior to SP1 and that is one of the main reasons I stopped using Media Center

Shut Down: Shut down speed has been improved as well. It takes about 35% less time for my laptop to shut down post SP1. Its still high compared to my Linux installation which shuts down in 10-12 seconds. I am not going to mention the distro here and start a flame war

Conclusion

After the post installation experience, my conclusion is that SP1 is really good. Of course, hardware differences might cause problems, check on the MS website if you are suspicious about some of your hardware. In the one day where I used Vista after SP1 installation for all my day to day activities, I feel one should not wait for the update to show up on Windows Update. If your hardware is the same as mine or similar, just grab the download and install. You won’t regret it.

Update:

I am seeing some quirks after the installation. Windows Update still shows 256 MB worth of updates available and that includes (see Correction) SP1. Not a major issue but quite annoying.

On a side note, I would like some opinion of Roxio Creator. I did not find it good. I have another system with Nero and it offers quite a lot of options. I would like to know any free or open source alternatives that are available for Vista with a decent feature set. Thanks in advance.

 Correction

The SP1 which I said was available after the Vista SP1 install was that of MS Office 2007 Trial and a few other security updates.

Windows Vista – Update Failure

I dual boot Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) with Windows Vista Home Premium which came along with my laptop. Until today, there was no problem with Windows due to installing third party software or Windows Updates. Well, the problems like sluggishness on a Core 2 Duo T5300 with 1 GB ram, slow startup, shutdown, hard disk working all the time, resolution being set to 1024 X 768 on waking up from Stand By were there right from day one.

Yesterday, four updates showed up. One for ATI PCI something which I was not interested in since I dont have an ATI card, one update for Windows Email, Media Center each and another one named, Windows Vista Update which said it increased system reliability.

I tried to updated yesterday. Once all the updates were downloaded and installed, the computer rebooted twice and I logged in. I was thinking that the updates were successful. I could even see that it said so in the Updater window. A minute later it again said updates were available. That is when I realised that the updates failed. I gave another try, but in vain.

Today I tried to update again. I included the ATI update as well even though it was an Optional update. After the update was complete, the system rebooted twice and then showed me a screen which was 800 x 600 instead of 1280 X 800. I logged in and checked if I could change the resolution but I could not. Again all the other three updates have failed. For a moment I thought I had done something stupid by including the ATI update.

But, I calmed down and did a System Restore hoping that everything would be back to normal. I should say I was not confident at all. The nightmare of installing Windows was right in front of my eyes. I have installed Windows versions 98/ME/2000/XP innumerable times. So I know what it means and how much time it would take, even though I have not tried installing Vista.

Things did go well. At least the System Restore worked. And I was able to set the right resolution. Well, it was my fault to select that update. I don’t know how it went for the others. If everything went alright then may be this is an isolated problem. If it has been occurring to other people as well then that raises several questions.

• Why publish an update that fails? Was it really tested?
• Why does an update that does not work be online for two days?
• Is someone at MS aware that their update failed?

I am not sure if the Windows Update program calls home if a particular update failed. Does anyone have any idea?

I then singled out the Windows Media Center Cumulative update and installed it. No hitches there. It went fine. No reboot was required. As I was typing this, I updated Ubuntu 7.10. It installed several (atleast 15 or more) updates and none failed. Nor was a reboot required. Since I typed this post on Ubuntu I don’t have those crazy KB numbers handy. I will post an update.

Already, I am using Vista only for gaming, and I have started thinking that if I should wipe it out and install XP.

Nov 17, 2007: Update:

The updates are

• Updates for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [November 2007] (KB905866)
• Update for Windows Vista (KB941649)
• Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista (KB941229)
• ATI Technologies Inc – Other Hardware – ATI PCI Express (3GIO) Filter Driver

Nov 19, 2007: Update:

I tried to install the updates one by one today. I could see only the first two of them from the above list. Looks like the other two got installed somehow during the prior update that failed. I wonder how :O

Well, I was able to install the first one Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [November 2007] (KB905866) successfully.

I tried the next one. After download – install – reboot – configuring updates – reboot – please wait – login events,  Update for Windows Vista (KB941649) failed

I am not trying this for another two days.

My Blog Statistics

Well, I had been thinking about this for a long time. Today I had the time and the patience to do it. What was that? Consolidate the statistics of this blog.

I have prepared a rough document and put it here for all of you to see

Some cool graphs to summarize. I had taken all the data right out of my sitemeter.com account. All the graphs were created with OpenOffice.org 2.3.0

Primary Information

Total Unique Visitors: 7397
Lifetime of Blog: 15 months
Posts: 70
Comments: 74
Top Post: 1600 hits to this day : Dell Inspiron 6400 – Part 4 – Installing Ubuntu 7.04

OS % Share

No prizes for guessing this one. Win XP wins hands down

Browser % Share

Well, again, no prizes here. Firefox turned out to be the most widely used browser by the readers of my blog.

Traffic Distribution

The real surprise was here. Until a few days ago, it was North America, from where most of the traffic to this site came from. Well, Europe just snatched the first place as of today

I dont pay for sitemeter, so no display resolution, Javascript and such details. Well, that would have been nice but I am satisfied with what I have got so far.

And, I have the satisfaction of completing a long due post

Dell Inspiron 6400 – Part 4 – Installing Ubuntu 7.04

A couple of days earlier, I had given a hint of what I was doing with my laptop. Today lets dive deeper and see what that was all about. Well, I installed the most popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu 7.04 (aka Feisty Fawn) on my laptop and it would dual boot with Windows Vista Home Premium that had come preinstalled with the machine. I will share with you my experiences.

Steps

1. Backup important files

2. Checklist of required items

3. Partition hard disk

4. Install Ubuntu

5. Reboot and check Windows can still boot

6. Reboot into Ubuntu

Caution: The steps outlined below deal with partitioning and formatting. If you are following these steps to do the installation yourself and are not sure about a particular step, exercise caution else you might end up losing all the data on your disk. I recommend taking help of a friend who is knowledgeable about partitioning and formatting hard disks.
Backup

Its always a good idea to backup important files before I – for that matter you or anyone else – venture into the exciting world of OS installation. I made sure that my backups can be restored and the files are in good order.

Checklist of required items

1. Ubuntu 7.04 CD. I downloaded the iso image from here and burnt a CD. Make sure that you download the correct version matching your processor type. Alternately, you can order a pressed CD from Canonical at Shipit

2. Windows DVD that came with my laptop – for the worst case scenario

Partitioning the hard disk

I had read in the forums that if I need to dual boot with Windows Vista, then I need to partition the disk using the Disk Management tool that comes with Windows. Right click on My Computer > Manage. Select Storage > Disk Management. I shrunk and existing partition and made some free space. I then created three simple partitions to hold the root, home and swap partitions. The first two were 10 GB each and the swap partition was 1 GB in size. I formatted the drives as NTFS. Though this is not required, I went ahead since I did not want to have any trouble while installing. I rebooted my laptop again and made sure that Windows was still able to pull itself up. Yes, it was ok. The new drives showed up correctly. The reason we do the partitioning in Windows is, Windows does not allow changes to the partition table and will require you to restore the partition table using the repair option available on the Windows DVD.

Dell laptops by default would have 4 primary partition one each for the OS, Recovery, Dell Media Direct and a small 50 MB partition for which I saw no use rather than to install a boot manager. The small 50 MB partition was formatted as FAT 16.

Installing Ubuntu

I rebooted my laptop with the Ubuntu CD. You can boot from the CD by selecting the device in the boot menu. On Dell machines you can do this by holding down the F12 key when the system boots up. The networks were configured and I was able to surf the net. I then started the installation. This is now a 7 step process. The first three steps involve selecting your language, keyboard layout and time zone. Next was the partitioning.

Since I already had my drives partitioned, the only task here was to select Manual partitioning and assign the drives to appropriate partitions. I selected the drive, clicked on edit partition and selected the mount point as / (root), home and swap respectively. I also chose the file system as ext3, one of the best available today and asked the partition manager to format my / and home partitions. If you get an error that one of your partitions has some inconsistent sectors, allocation units etc, click on Cancel. Clicking on Ignore will spell trouble during the boot manager installation and render the machine non bootable in either OS. I learnt this the hard way. I was all set and continued with the install. It took around 14 minutes for the install to complete.

Reboot and check Windows can still boot

I rebooted and GRUB appeared. I selected Windows which was listed as the last option. I held my breath as the OS came to life. No signs of trouble here. I was able to login and everything looked so good.

Reboot into Ubuntu

So, I booted into Ubuntu. All was well here too. I was greeted with a popup that said the OS was using restricted drivers for the Wireless device. I tried connecting to a Wireless network and there was no problem. The NTFS drives were automatically mounted as read only and I could open the files on the Windows section of my hard disk. I had at hand a very usable, friendly, fast and stable OS. I strongly feel I can live using Ubuntu alone.

Conclusion

All my fears of dual booting with Windows Vista was laid to rest when I saw that GRUB managed quite well in the end. I am enjoying Ubuntu now and has been a while since I booted into Vista. The memory footprint was also small. Would that not constitute another post? Well, yes, kinda. I am planning to write a review on Ubuntu sometime next week and will cover all these in detail. Some of you might ask why dual boot when I can live with Ubuntu. Simple, I have paid for Windows Vista when I purchased the laptop and I will use it for what it is worth. A few games, Windows DVD creator is a cool app that lets me create photo DVDs with some neat effects. So its going to be both atleast for sometime now.

I am glad to help anyone who might have questions regarding the dual boot installation process. However, my limited time may not be in favor of that and I have to admit that I may not be able to help on time. I recommend that you visit the Ubuntu forums at http://www.ubuntuforums.org.

Dell Inspiron 6400 – Part 4 – Other Applications

Now that my laptop with the OS was working well, it was time to get some software installed to be productive. Here is a list of software that I installed – without any fuss except for the UAC nag.

1. OpenOffice.org suite 2.2.0 with JRE
2. Adobe Reader 8.0
3. Jdk-6-windows-i586 for my development work
4. Apache Tomcat 6.0.13
5. Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3
6. WinRAR 3.7 Beta 8
7. An outdated but really capable and lightweight Java IDE GeI
8. Adobe Flash Player plugins for both IE and Firefox
9. Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003
10. Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003
11. Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2003

Ironically, the problems were with the pre-installed Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 DE which was not very comfortable with the Windows libraries. I had to re-install this application to resolve the problem. The Roxio Direct-to-Disc application which is a part of the Roxio EMC 9 suite did not have a suitable driver – I did not understand, that is what windows complained at startup – and I removed it for good. It was of no use to me anyway.

Dell Inspiron 6400 – Part 3 – Screenshots

After the first two parts [part 1, part 2] I could not manage to get a post the third post ready today. So, here are a bunch of screenshots.

All the screenshots are in 1280×800 resolution, PNG Format

Well, the last one is a sign of progress
More details on this one in the coming days