Going Chrome OS - Abandoning Windows 8 and the PC

[elsphinc]

$> cd /pub/
$> more beer

 

[Schlenkerla]

$> cd /pub/
$> more beer

$> sudo beer

 

[Schlenkerla]

$> cd /pub/
$> more beer

$> sudo install beer

 

[Homercidal]

$> grep 'Beer' > want.sum | more

 

[unionrdr]

Dang! I should start charging people to do that kind of thing! I usually only charge about $40 for non "friends 'n family". I guess if I had to make a living at it, I'd have to charge about that much.

Your router will be fine without your computer. You can easily log back into later to make config. changes, but you should have the IP address, Login Name, and Password wrote down if it isn't already.

There's a little pasteboard thing in the base of the router with that info on it. I hope that's all I need. On wife's laptop for the moment. I & she don't know how to "right click" with this darn mouse finger pad thingy. But it'll be great to have everything working again!

 

[hoppyhoppyhippo]

Usually on a trackpad you right click by tapping the pad with 2 fingers.

 

[unionrdr]

I'll have to try that. Computer Crisis called earlier & said my virus problems are pretty common to XP & Vista systems. Upgrading to windows 7 he says will negate many of those problems I'm having. Just gonna cost double, with all the hacker crap he had to take out first. But at least all my documents/files will transfer for my books & BS2. At least my usual problems will be over & done with. Might take till the 31st to pay for it all though...

 

[unionrdr]

Well. everything's finally getting back to normal! My son & I picked up his guardsman blue '04, 40th anniversary Mustang GT yesterday. Got home too late to get the computer back till today. Had to do some windows 7 set up. Quick, but a little different than the older vista premium. Now I can get back on my home brewing book & finish that up any day here. God, is it great to have my desk top comp back again! Computer crisis even installed some better anti-malware & an anti-spy bot program as well. Even the mouse movement is less "loose" feeling.

 

[unionrdr]

Well, I had to restore the system to a couple days ago. Too many anti-virus/malware programs running at once. Now I can't get the spell checker to work again? Hard to edit/proof read my books without it? I can't find how to turn it on again??

 

[user 190343]

I got 2 Chromebooks for my kids for Christmas last year. They LOVE them and they do most of the stuff they want. It's nice that they can't screw them up that bad and even if they do, it's a reset. Storing stuff in the cloud makes it really easy for them when they forget to print something at home, but they can get to it from their phone or school computers. I highly recommend it.

 

[unionrdr]

I managed to fix it. Had to turn on auto-spell checker in a couple of places & I'd turned off the comp to go vote, etc. so it seems the system must be reset after the mods to get them to work. Whew...

 

[unionrdr]

Well, so much for that! Spent the whole friggin' day since 7:38AM trying to get the computer to finish start boot up. Dammit, if I'd have just run that new spyware/malware/virus scanner Computer Crisis put in when they fixed it, I'd have been done by lunchtime. MFKR attacked the start up boot routine & some new hiding places. But this new program even scans zipped files, zip archives & every other nook & cranny. It was totally worth the 2:45 it took to run, even with it's speed booster turned on. I'd have gotten it half price if I'd have paid for it first. Oh well, at least problem solved. I can get back to book 2 of my series tomorrow at least.

 

[ColoHox]

Well, so much for that! Spent the whole friggin' day since 7:38AM trying to get the computer to finish start boot up. Dammit, if I'd have just run that new spyware/malware/virus scanner Computer Crisis put in when they fixed it, I'd have been done by lunchtime. MFKR attacked the start up boot routine & some new hiding places. But this new program even scans zipped files, zip archives & every other nook & cranny. It was totally worth the 2:45 it took to run, even with it's speed booster turned on. I'd have gotten it half price if I'd have paid for it first. Oh well, at least problem solved. I can get back to book 2 of my series tomorrow at least.

Jeesh union, with all the pc troubles you've had over the past week, maybe you should get a chromebook too. 5 second boot up and no 3 hr virus scans.

 

[unionrdr]

Ah, dang hackers had nothing better to do than infest the sites kids & younger folks go to. The last repair a couple weeks ago cost me $425! & he didn't even sign me up with even one of the 5 or so scanners he installed. Not to mention re-associating file documents with their related programs. I took too long getting to the one I was most impressed by at the end of a long day of fixing things manually. The startup boot wouldn't finish running & get to the choose desktop screen. Dammit! It almost hung up again this morning. What I need to do is get one of those zillion GHz computers with the 6 terabyte hard drive all for myself & give the kids this Gateway. I like Gateway computers, as they're bastardized frankensteins with parts from everyone. Easy to mod.

 

[unionrdr]

Well, here's another interesting development. I thought it was stalling out on the "starting windows" screen. Today, I decided to be just as stubborn. After 23 minutes, it finished starting boot up & worked normally. But still having problems with disc drive driver & restore point stuff. Dang thing works too slow on downloads, boot up & the like...?...

 

[Schlenkerla]

Well, here's another interesting development. I thought it was stalling out on the "starting windows" screen. Today, I decided to be just as stubborn. After 23 minutes, it finished starting boot up & worked normally. But still having problems with disc drive driver & restore point stuff. Dang thing works too slow on downloads, boot up & the like...?...

Sounds like you need to wipe and start all over.

Have you tried looking at Linux?

Http://www.renewablepcs.com

In general you can down load an iso, then, burn an iso disc, boot from it and select a partition. Start anew....

You can use a CD, DVD and USB flash memory to burn too. USB is the easiest.

I have tried ubuntu, lubuntu, fedora and puppy linux. I like lubuntu the best so far it seems to be the fastest of the ones I have tried. I have strongly considered mint too.I have two old HP pavilion pc's with 1G memory 1.33 or 1.25 GHrtz. Both work like new.

I also have a chrome book and chrome box. Both are my preferred machines to use day in and day out. That said I will never buy a pc with a Micro$oft operating system again.

BTW - Chrome is a Linux based OS as is Android.

 

[Schlenkerla]

FWIW-Chrome and Android are FLOSS.


http://opensource.org/licenses

 

[unionrdr]

Since spring, I've spent some $800 fixing this thing. I just paid $425 this month to get that total. I got the whole system wiped & installed windows 7 so I could still use my old files for my books, videos, pics, etc. So n0w I'm broke, no money for heating, running out of sigs, but bills paid for the moment. I took out nearly 1 gig of old security scanners, browsers, etc. It took 23 minutes yesterday to get through the starting windows screen, but after cleaning things out between me & my boys desktops, I got it to boot in 2 minutes this morning. Wanna get a new tower & bigger monitor this tax time. May try a different system? But would these other systems you mention work with youtube uploads, open office, etc?

 

[masonsjax]

My household has been 100% Linux since 1996. I was a Linux systems administrator/programmer at Google, but SWMBO still asks how to use the TV remote after 10 years, and she has no problem using Linux. In many cases you wouldn't know you weren't using Windows, except it runs smooth, fast, and doesn't crash.

 

[unionrdr]

Might have to look a bit to find a new tower with linux in it. I hate to buy one filled with what I don't want & have to spend more replacing it.

 

[masonsjax]

Linux is free and runs on just about anything. Dig an old computer out of the closet (or a dumpster) and install Linux. Youd be surprised at the new life you can find in old hardware.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Linux is free and runs on just about anything. Dig an old computer out of the closet (or a dumpster) and install Linux. Youd be surprised at the new life you can find in old hardware.

That No $hit!

My first Linux machines was slated for the trash, but figured I'd try Linux on it. Glad I did.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Might have to look a bit to find a new tower with linux in it. I hate to buy one filled with what I don't want & have to spend more replacing it.

Some places are selling new machines with Linux. You need to Google "New Linux Machines" or PC's.

You could go to a Build Your Own PC on line.

 

[unionrdr]

I'd have to see if my soldering irons still work. But I have built electronics in the past. But this computer is 5-7 years old & dual core @ 1.8GHz each. The older Gateway is way older @ only 450MHz.

 

[Schlenkerla]

I'd have to see if my soldering irons still work. But I have built electronics in the past. But this computer is 5-7 years old & dual core @ 1.8GHz each. The older Gateway is way older @ only 450MHz.

The renewables website has system requirements for each recommended OS.

http://www.renewablepcs.com/about-linux/which-linux-distros-are-the-best

 

[unionrdr]

Read up some of the page linked. Might be good to try with this dual core, which is more than needed as stated. I'd still like to get a new tower with the newest version of that though. Then this older one can go to the boys upstairs. My broadband connection allows for two computers on at once.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Might have to look a bit to find a new tower with linux in it. I hate to buy one filled with what I don't want & have to spend more replacing it.

They are definitely out there. Just need to look around.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/the-top-five-linux-desktop-vendors/9313

 

[Schlenkerla]

I did a quick search and found the above link. There's many more out there.

Like this....

http://lifehacker.com/5828747/how-to-build-a-computer-from-scratch-the-complete-guide

But do this... Not Windows 7...

http://lifehacker.com/5778882/getting-started-with-linux-the-complete-guide

 

[Zepth]

I'm a little late to the conversation but will chime in. I just installed Ubuntu onto one of my computers because I was tired of Windows always doing its thing. This particular machine is mostly a home server and doesn't have much system resources so when it bogs down it really gets hit hard. Haven't had any major problems yet.

It is certainly different getting used to. And I knew that from previous experience before making the jump. Seems everything always requires a web search to get done. "Media server doesn't have access to hard drive." Well of course not. I need to mess with certain registry files to have the hard drive mounted before the user logon. That makes sense. Well it does now that I know how the file system works and what permissions are granted to things by default. Like I said, different. Fortunately there is a huge amount of community help and I've always found an answer without needing to be the one to post the question or problem.

That said if you get used the the basics of it and don't want to set up a second hard drive to sling media across the house to a smart tv life will be easier. After you open up the web browsing app of choice or your spreadsheet it's almost identical to every other setup out there. I've considered offering it to the parents who are always in computer peril on the grounds that they can't accidentally screw it up.*

Best part is it's not only free but you can download an iso and give it a test run before committing to install anything. This is a great feature that's worth mentioning and should be tried out by anyone considering it. Give it a shot, you've got nothing to lose.

*Alright I accidentally broke Ubuntu once. It wouldn't even boot afterwards. I had an encrypted file that mounts into the file system at the point of your choice. Now I decided that it would be awesome if I mounted it so that the system shortcuts would automatically link me into the encrypted filesystem when mounted but still work just fine when not mounted. True phantom mode. So I mounted it into /home .... Don't do that.

 

[unionrdr]

Thanks for the advice y'all. I can't wait to get a new tower with one of those systems installed. I'm getting sick of so much down time fixing this bloody thing.