Linux vs Windows vs Mac

Something happen to a windows Master Boot Record (MBR) that you’re responsible for? Want a very quick, very easy way to restore it with nothing but your craft, native intelligence and a liveCD?

Boot into your Ubuntu LiveCD on the offending machine. Once Ubuntu starts up, go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources and enable (by checking it off) the Universal repository.

Now, open a terminal session (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type the following:

sudo apt-get install ms-sys

ms-sys is a program used to write Microsoft compatible boot records.

Now you’ll need to figure out what partition is the one hosting your Windows operating system. Back in the command line, type:

sudo fdisk -l

That will list the available partitions. You’re looking for a partition that says something like

/dev/sda1 1 9327 74919096 83 NTFS

The two important bits are the ‘/dev/sda1‘ which is the partition itself and the ‘NTFS‘ which tells us it’s a Windows formatted partition. So your Windows partition exists on your drive sda and it’s partition 1. The MBR for drive sda (assuming you boot into windows using it’s native boot loader) is what you want to repair.

We want to fix the MBR on /dev/sda. To do so, type:

sudo ms-sys -m /dev/sda

You’ll want to change the ’sda’ bit if your results from ‘fdisk -l‘ are different. If for instance your windows install is on sdb or hda.

Once you do that, reboot the machine, removing the LiveCD from the drive and Windows should come back to you.

source

To create lan to linux or windows computer you must install SAMBA.
1)To get samba,samba gui tool and related packages type in terminal.

sudo apt-get install samba samba-common smbclient smbfs samba-dbg system-config-samba gsambad

2)Share folders
Take System->Admiistration->Samba.Click Add Share.Then browse to folder you want to share.

3)Set STATIC IP
Take System->Admiistration->Network.

Take Wireless connection or Wired Connection as u prefer.

Select Static IP.
Type Ip address 192.168.0.1
Dns 255.255.255.0
In other computer type

Ip address 192.168.0.1
Dns 255.255.255.0

Now close network
Now people think the other computer must appear in Places->Network,As in windows.But actually it wont happen in linux.
To view shared folder of other computer take.
Type in terminal:

nautilus

Now you will get a window,in its address bar type smb://192.168.0.1
Note: The given ip is Ip adress of the computer we want to view.

Now you will get the shared folders!

After reinstalling windows XP and rebooted grub was lost.I had no way to boot linux. I inserted some Live cd then proceeded until i almost have installed linux i don’t know why but i made Boot Flag “True” for Linux partition and tried to installed grub again.When I rebooted : “No Operating System Found”.

The answer was Auto Super Grub disk.
I suggest not to use live cd and type at least 10 commands and end up nowhere.If you do so and change Boot Flag or Some thing you are welcomed to the same horror i had 2 years ago as i said above!

1) Boot Windows

2)Download Auto Super Grub Disk.exe
http://forjamari.linex.org/frs/?group_id=61&release_id=629#629

3)Stop Anti-virus program if any.
Because Auto Super Grub Disk will edit windows registry so Anti-virus will find identify it as a virus.
If don’t know how to stop Anti-virus then allow Auto Super Grub Disk to edit registry when Anti-virus show you a pop-up.

4)Double click Auto Super Grub Disk1.exe
click ok u need not do any thing ,just click ok.

5)Reboot
Now you Will see the Windows boot menu with another option: unetbootin-supergrubdisk.
Select it using arrow key and enter when it is selected.Just do nothing.
6)Select your Linux and boot
You will have grub menu again.
Select Linux and boot.When you are in Linux reboot.Now u have restored Grub menu.

7)Boot To Windows Now Auto grub disk wizard will ask to remove Super Grub Disk from the windows boot loader,Click yes.
Don’t worry you will still have the auto_super_grub_disk_1.0.exe file safe in windows.

8)Enjoy linux again.

The evolution of the Windows client, involving both Windows Vista (now with Service Pack 1) and Windows 7, appears to be closer than Microsoft is ready to acknowledge officially. Of course, Windows XP, even with Service Pack 3, is the past, with the exception of customers abandoning Windows Vista by exercising their downgrade rights. Windows Vista, even with SP1, is a present that makes the future seem to not get here fast enough. And Vista SP2 along with Windows 7 and Windows Cloud (Strata) are the future. But at the same time, both Vista SP2 and Windows 7 are nothing more than the evolution of Vista, to a lesser, and respectively a larger degree.

Come the end of October 2008, and the start of November, Microsoft will deliver a rather consistent taste of where it is heading with Windows, not only Windows 7, but also Windows 7 Server and Windows Strata (the label continues to be unconfirmed by the company). Events such as the Professional Developer Conference 2008, Windows Hardware Conference 2008 and TechEd EMEA will be focused on Windows 7 and Windows Cloud, although less on Windows Vista.

While at TechEd Brasil, at the start of this week, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer indicated that the company planned to unveil a range of new products by July 2009. Microsoft’s CEO mentioned that, by the end of June 2009, the software giant would offer “client operating system releases.” Microsoft is, of course, already cooking Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7.Ballmer stated that “Microsoft technologies: Windows, Windows Server, .NET, Visual Studio, Silverlight, SharePoint, Office (…) over the course of the 12 month period that ends June of next year, [are] just a subset of all of the exciting new innovations Microsoft will bring to market: client operating system releases, information management tools, security, gaming products and systems. The range of new technologies in some senses is growing and growing quickly.” (emphasis added)

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Microsoft released Windows Vista RTM at the end of January 2007, not counting the business launch of the operating system in November 2006. Vista SP1 was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008 concomitantly with Windows Server 2008, but was only made available for download starting March 18. Now the Redmond company has already moved onward to Service Pack 2.

In fact Vista SP2 invites to the Beta program have already started to be sent out, according to Neowin. It is not Windows Vista SP2 that Microsoft is cooking, but also Windows Server 2008 SP2, Beta invites for which have also been sent out. Microsoft has yet to confirm anything officially, but the first Beta bits for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 are reportedly going to testers in just four weeks.

Still, while Service Pack 1 was the catalyst that took Vista RTM out of coma, making the operating system worthy of a long forgotten and discarded Wow label, SP2 is bound to be nothing more than a standard service pack release. At best, SP2 will take Vista forward just as much as SP1.

The equation is rather simple for Microsoft. The company will end up with a repeat of the Windows XP SP2 – Windows Vista scenario in which both operating systems are available at the same time on the market, although this situation would involve Vista SP2 and Windows 7 RTM. The last thing that Microsoft needs is to evolve Vista with SP2 sufficiently enough that it will be capable to rival Windows 7. In this context, the answer is rather simple. The Redmond giant needs to keep Vista at a relative stand-still even with SP2, and focus all innovation on Windows 7.

Windows 7, or Windows 6.1, or Windows Vista R2, or Windows Vista but “a lot better”

The seventh major version of Windows, but only according to Microsoft’s math, comes with no differentiation between the codename and the brand. However, Windows 7 will, for the sake of perpetuating the existing level of Vista software compatibility, be in fact Windows 6.1. At the same time, according to Ballmer, Windows 7 will be Vista, but “a lot better.” This makes Windows 7 an excellent candidate for the Windows Vista R2 label, just as Windows 7 Server is in fact Windows Server 2008 R2. Still, the early feedback on the Windows 7 moniker indicates that the management of the Windows 7 project made the right choice.

“There you have it, Windows 7 now has a name. It’s called – Windows 7,” revealed Steve Clayton, Microsoft’s UK Partner Group CTO. “To be honest I was quite surprised but also pretty pleased. The naming decision as Mike Nash says is about simplicity. It’ll certainly save us from all having to unlearn the name we’ve all had for it to date. I expect this naming decision will be debated to death on all the usual sites, but me, I’m just happy we settled on a name. Now let’s get to the PDC and get the bits!”

“Win7 to officially be called . . . Win7″ said Robert Hensing, Microsoft security software engineer. “I actually for once - LOVE that we are keeping the name of the OS simple and leaving it at Win7. I will admit – I was somewhat disappointed when XP’s name was announced internally (internally it was known as Whistler) and I was downright horrified when we decided to call Longhorn “Vista” (my friends call it “Veesta”). Longhorn sounds cool . . . manly . . . Vista is pretty much the exact opposite in my mind . . . it sounds serene and ‘pretty’.”

“Steve Ballmer was at Gartner’s Symposium/ITxpo conference today, talking about a number of issues. The big question was about Vista deployments and what should companies do. He answered by saying that the adoption rate for Vista, is two times that of where XP was after the same period,” stated Neil Hutson, Microsoft evangelist. “Then in Jedi style, Neil MacDonald from Gartner said that 61% of respondents are thinking of skipping Vista. To that, Ballmer said that Microsoft would be ready for that outcome, but if he was the audience, he would not wait. I think that this is a good call. Vista SP1 is really stable and the big question is whether companies are going to wait for the first SP of Windows 7 before they deploy? That will leave them with a lot of very outdated machines and OS software that will take them a lot longer to replace.”

Windows Cloud – To Strata or not to Strata?

At PDC2008 Microsoft plans to unveil the first Beta of Windows Cloud, which could be labeled Windows Strata, although the company has yet to confirm this aspect. Windows Strata goes beyond the Windows client and server operating systems, and is a new platform tailored to the Redmond giant’s Software plus Services business model.

“We have our Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks, we’re going to roll out new technologies and a new platform for this software plus services world. The new platform has a lot of work to do. First, it requires a new platform in the cloud. In the Microsoft kind of way of thinking every new major trend requires a new version of our operating system. So, we did Windows, then we did Windows Server, then we did Windows CE and Mobile. And you’ll see us bring Windows technologies in a new form to the cloud,” Ballmer explained.

Microsoft is essentially looking to keep up with the changes associated with the development paradigm. But what the company is doing is transition the Windows style of development to the cloud and make it available in the browser. Silverlight, .NET, Windows Presentation Foundation and Visual Studio will all contribute to enabling developers to built web-based solutions running on Microsoft’s new Internet platform. In this regard, the software giant is working to ensure that services will “be available as a system construct in Windows Server, in Windows desktop and in Windows in the cloud,” Ballmer stated, adding that “with this evolution to a new world of distributed computing, we Microsoft will introduce a new cloud platform, some new cloud services around Web 2.0, some advances to our development tools and development runtimes, as well as tools and technologies that really support new business models.”

As we are patiently waiting to test Windows 7 later this month, Microsoft is cautious about promising too much and is making sure that expectations remain low. According to CEO Steve Ballmer, Windows 7 will essentially be Vista, but “a lot better”.

In fact, when the executive said that Windows 7 would be a Windows Vista with a cleaner interface and performance interface, it may sound like Windows 7 is much more a service pack than a major operating system release Ballmer claims Windows 7 will be. But then, Ballmer also said that “Vista is good” and if he ran another company, he would not wait for Windows 7, but deploy Windows Vista right away.

We are officially confused. Windows 7 is what appears to be an extensive Windows Vista service pack and its new features may not be worth the wait. But it is a major operating system release?

Apparently, Ballmer made those remarks during a question and answer session with Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald, who asked the Microsoft executive how Microsoft would position Windows 7 as a new product, without offering too much or too little in terms of new features.

Microsoft is providing clues that Windows 7 indeed will be a fix for Windows Vista, but the company avoids to tie the new software to the old. The name “Windows 7” is not consistent with any Microsoft product branding strategy over the past 15 years, but was chosen for reasons of simplicity and, according to Microsoft, this new operating system will be the seventh generation of Windows (which has been questioned by some as Windows 7 could be considered the eighth or even ninth generation of Windows).

For now, it is safe to say that we are underwhelmed, but we are looking forward to see Windows 7 later this month and see how much better it is in comparison to Vista.

No more rumors about Vista SE: Windows 7 is all about simplicity and that’s why Windows 7 will simply be called Windows, Microsoft announced today.

Microsoft is expected to be handing out pre-betas of Windows 7 to devs at WinHEC and PDC soon, and it looks like it’s settled on an official name for its next-gen OS , Windows 7. THe code name is the real name, which is a first for Windows. According to Mike Nash on the Vista blog, the company went with Windows 7 because it “just makes sense” as the seventh release of Windows, and MS doesn’t want to come up with a new “aspirational” name like Vista  it “doesn’t do justice” to the goal of staying “firmly rooted” in the ideas of Vista.

Microsoft will provide a first glimpse at Windows 7 at the upcoming PDC 2008 event, at which the company will be handing out pre-beta releases of the software. Windows 7 was originally scheduled to be released in 2010, but apparently has been pulled into H2 2009. According to our sources, Windows 7 will be available in time for the 2009 Christmas season.

We previously learned that Windows 7 will be based on the kernel of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, which is an evolution of the Windows Vista kernel. Windows 7 will also keep Vista’s driver model. PDC 2008 will have a strong focus on the new operating system: The majority of Windows 7 sessions will discuss graphics topics, performance and energy efficiency as well as communication services.

This simple guide will bring up the Windows start menu inside GNOME and allow you to run, use and install any Windows app (that can run in a VM) inside your existing desktop. It takes about 10 minutes to setup, minus the time to install Windows, and involves one command in total.

Final Update September 2007: Virtualbox 1.5 includes seamless virtualization! Go read about that instead!

Update: If you’ve been having trouble getting this working, make sure the key is correct - our site layout chopped the last part of the registry key earlier. Note this requires Windows XP Pro. XP home won’t do.

Update 2: To install the vmware-server package just use the Add/Remove… program.

Update 3: If RDesktop starts a blue background, instead of just the taskbar, click Start ? Control Panel ? User Accounts ? Change the way users log on and off, and enable the welcome screen and fast user switching.

This is a newer version of a rather popular article I wrote a while ago. This updated version is a lot simpler and allows multiple apps to be run.

• Click Applications ? Add/Remove… install the vmware-server package.
• Click System ? Administration ? Synaptic Package Manager. Install the rdesktop package.
• Click Applications ? System Tools ? VMware Server Console When VMware Server Console starts, click Connect to attach to your local machine. Then Create a New Virtual Machine. Use all the defaults, but pick NAT networking. Pop in your Windows CD, and install Windows
• Once Windows has started:

1. Enable Terminal Services by clicking Start ? Control Panel ? System. Click the Remote tab, and enable Allow users to connect remotely to this computer
2. Turn off the desktop for the user you’ll use to run your Windows apps, by clicking Start ? Run typing regedit and selecting HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/ CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer. Create a DWORD called NoDesktop set to 1.
3. Note the IP address of Windows. Clicking Start ? Connect to ? Show All Connections. Select the Local Area Connection and hit the Support tab
4. Download SeamlessRDP, then extract it to C:\seamlessrdp
5. Log out of Windows, and close VMware Server Console (leave the VM running)

• Back in Ubuntu, open a Terminal, and run:

rdesktop -A -s ‘c:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell.exe c:\windows\explorer.exe’ IPAddress -u user -p password

substituting the IP address you noted earlier.

• The top of the Windows taskbar should appear above your GNOME panel on the bottom of the screen. Right click it, select Properties, and disable Lock the Taskbar. Then drag the taskbar to the left hand side of your screen.

That’s it. You can now run launch any Windows app you want from your VM (and install more if you need them). They’ll appear on the GNOME desktop, and you can switch between them from the panel.

Microsoft has kindly extended its XP “downgrade” program for OEMs by another six months. Rather than appreciating the extension, some people have chosen to mock Microsoft and call for the curtain to close on Windows Vista once and for all.

Allow me to share with you some numbers that come from a Vista Tracking Poll conducted by CDW through Walker Information. They used an online survey, and participants included 772 IT decision makers who identified themselves as being familiar with Windows Vista. Here were some of their key findings:

• 48 percent of respondents indicate that their organization is evaluating, testing, or implementing Vista. That doesn’t sound dead to me.
• 30 percent of respondents have organizations that are currently implementing or have already implemented Vista.
• 50 percent of the respondents said Vista is performing “above expectation” on key features.

Given that most of what we read is how worthless Vista is, one must wonder: What could they possibly about this wretched OS that is doomed to retirement at such an early age? Most of the respondents pointed to security enhancements as the No. 1 feature that attracts them to Vista. Performance improvements, search enhancements, improved networking, and patch management — these were all high in people’s list of features they liked about Vista.

It still boggles my mind that people berate Vista, even after SP1. Mr. Kennedy called it a “pretender to the desktop throne.” I’ll agree that it may not be all that it was initially hyped up to be, and hopefully Windows 7 can meet the expectations we’ve been watching and waiting for nearly a decade to see. But how can some of its finest features simply be ignored by critics?

Among them, there are enhancements to Group Policy settings (more than 800 new settings in Vista) that allow for a greater level of administrative control over such items as power use. These days, we are all about going green, and here Vista is an OS that can help us thanks to the added ability to adjust the amount of power your system uses. Other enhancements allow for greater security control within the enterprise, preventing users from plugging in USB devices and other removable media, User Account Control, and more.

Vista also introduces BitLocker protection, which is great for encrypting your entire system. Hundreds of thousands of laptops with confidential company data on them are lost or stolen each year. Without encryption of the drive, it is just a matter of time before a thief can access the contents. With BitLocker, that worry is removed. As a business person — perhaps one who has had their laptop stolen — would you mock that level of protection? Most likely not. Can you get it with XP? No. So, even if you didn’t receive a feature you wanted in Vista like WinFS (which nobody really understood anyway; it just sounded cool) but did receive peace of mind in the event your laptop was stolen, wouldn’t you say that it’s worth having?

I can go on and on with features that are a tremendous improvement over XP, features Microsoft developers can be proud of because they enhance our user experience, as well as make us more secure and more productive.

So is this really just about XP versus Vista, both of which are Microsoft OSes? Vista is clearly the superior OS to anyone who takes the time to really use it with an open mind. Just look at the aforementioned survey results where users point out the advantages over XP. It seems to me that this ongoing criticism of Vista by IT journalists has more to do with a desire to rage against the Microsoft machine than it does to speak about features we can use in the enterprise.

I say that Vista is alive and kicking. Enough blabber about the past. It’s time for — dare I say it? — change. And I don’t simply mean a change to XP or the wait for a change to Windows 7 (which will no doubt underperform when compared to users’ expectations, as seems to be the trend these days). If you truly want a Mac, go get one. Stop complaining about Vista and change. Or take your PC and install Linux. Or downgrade to XP. But stop the Vista bashing. You 20 people who yell like you are 20 million are really starting to get on the nerves of the 200 million Vista-loving PC users out here who would spend more time debating with you, but we are too busy enjoying our Vista OS and don’t have time.

Source: infoworld

We’re going to look at what may be a better way to do it. It’s certainly easier and from reports, NTFS-3G is a bit more stable as well. This Howto is written specifically for and from Ubuntu 6.10 - Edgy Eft but should work on any Debian based distro.

It should be noted that NTFS-3G may contain bugs and issues. Writing to NTFS from Linux may be unstable so you should use this at your own risk.

The first thing you’re going to have to do is install NTFS-3G. Let’s open up a terminal session and do the following:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

You’ll be prompted to install this and several other dependancies as well. If you run into errors where ntfs-3g can’t be found, check out this article about adding extra repositories.

Now that NTFS-3G is installed, it’s time to tell your box to use it to mount your NTFS partition. Let’s find out where exactly that is. Back in your terminal type

sudo fdisk -l

You should get something that looks like this:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20480008+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2550 7493 39707451+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda3 7494 9729 17960670 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 2550 7394 38911288+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 7395 7493 795186 82 Linux swap / Solaris

We’re interested in the partition that says HPFS/NTFS. Notice that on my machine it’s /dev/sda1. You’ll want to keep track of this for yours. I suggest spelling it out in leftover Halloween candy on your desk, or for a spooky effect, use fake blood.

Now that you have your info on the NTFS partition, let’s edit the fstab file in your /etc directory to use NTFS-3G.

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak

Always make backups of stuff like this. Really.

Many Ubuntu users will find that the fstab already reflects their NTFS drive as mounted in the /media folder. This is standard but does not allow write access, only read access. We’re going to change this to use NTFS-3G. To see what you have do the following:

cat /etc/fstab

If you have a mount point already for your NTFS partition, it will look something like:

/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

You’ll want to replace the bit that says ntfs with ntfs-3g, so it looks like this:

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Now add:

/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs-3g defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

Replace the /dev/sda1 bit with whatever you wrote down from your fdisk -l output and save the file.

If you don’t have this listed at all, you’ll want to create a mount point in your /media folder. If you want to call it ‘windows‘ then you’d make a directory under /media called windows:

sudo mkdir /media/windows

Then add the below line to your /etc/fstab file:

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Now add:

/dev/sda1 /media/windows ntfs-3g defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

Finally, restart your machine. Your Windows partition should now be on your desktop, and you can access it through your terminal by going to /media and then cd into the directory your using.

You’ve probably encountered unpleasant experience while working on Windows Vista on several occasion. The system suddenly freeze-up while you are executing a Windows component (such as searching file on Windows Explorer or the desktop).

Often, the system freeze-up occurred when you’re still working on several file or document and rebooting the system is not a good option to solve this problem because you will lose any unsaved data in open programs.
However, there’s a way to fix this type of problem on Windows Vista without rebooting and losing your work:

1. When a Windows component freezes and becomes unresponsive, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.

2. Click the Start Task Manager button

3. Click the Processes tab.

4. In the Image Name column, find the explorer.exe process.

5. Right-click on explorer.exe and select End Process,

6. A Task Manager warning pop-up is displayed, Click Yes to end the process

This step should make the desktop, and possibly open applications, temporarily disappear.

7. In Task Manager, click on the File menu, and select New Task (Run…)

8. Type explorer.exe on the New Task windows, and click OK.

The Windows Explorer Shell should restarts and applications you had open previously, reappear.

That’s it, now you can continue working without worrying to lose data.

Source : gatzet.com