Coyote Blog

My favorite case ever fit a BTX motherboard. That was a really smart design that kept everything cool inside with minimal fans. That form factor didn't take off as a result of a lot of factors, but I really loved that case. It's too bad because that was a pretty dramatic improvement over previous factors.

That machine is still running, actually. Cool and silent.

An easier way to learn new operating systems is to run them in a virtual machine. Download Virtualbox, it's free. You can then try out various distros without repartitioning, etc.

I agree with the virtualization. I use VMWare products because I deal with them all the time as part of my job, but there are plenty of other great solutions for home use (like VirtualBox).

That being said, I'm upping my storage requirements a bit and am considering this case:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/847/SC847E16-R1K28LP.cfm
Yes, you need a proper SAS (or SATA/SAS) controller to work with this.

>>> That is one nice rig! I like that the power supply is located on the bottom rather than the top. Plenty of room which means it should be easy to ventilate and route cables

I believe the historical reason for placing it at the top ties to the usage of the PS fan as a case exhaust fan§, given that heat rises... As long as there are other fans in the case which carry away excess heat -- and these days there are usually more than just one -- there's really no reason offhand why the PS needs to be at the top.

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§Other than consistency to designs dating back to the original IBM PC, with its PS on the right side, which becomes "top" when tipped on its side... And recall that the original IBM PC had its power switch on that side, meaning you would not want to or expect to place THAT side on the ground, either...

Regarding 3.5 drives, you posted too quickly. It’s not an accident that you don’t have any. Nobody does. Anything you can do on a 3.5, you can do better with a thumb drive.

Generally correct, but since a thumb drive can't be "protected" from getting infected with malware, a 3.5" "boot disk", which can be write protected, does allow you the ability to boot the machine to DOS, which can be useful in removing/recovering from certain types of infection.

Yes, you can nominally do this with a CD as well, but 3.5"ers do have the advantage of being able to be tweaked in a way that you can't do with a CD.

OTOH, a lot of software doesn't fit on a 3.5" drive any more, either. So you have to sort of guess if there's any reason for it.

BTW -- once you've gotten your system set up as you want, I recommend you image the drive, then back up the images to DVDs (or, alternately, to an older, "too small" HD which you can disconnect fully from the system to protect it from malware) -- there are a number of different softwares to do this with -- one obvious one which used to be good is Norton Ghost (haven't used it in about 7-8 years). The other I can recommend is Acronis True Image.

Also -- when you are setting up your system, DON'T take the Windows "default" of One Giant Partition To Rule Them All. I recommend breaking it up into at least three parts, The OS and any stuff that really, really really wants to be on the OS partition (drivers, small programs, and certain ill-behaved softwares), another one which you can place your programs onto for the most part, and the third for keeping most, if not all, of your data. Among other things, this means you can slam the OS/Programs image onto it without backing up your entire HD first to be certain you don't miss anything important in your data (you still will, but it's less likely to be critical stuff you lose)

It does take a certain discipline to Put Stuff Where It Belongs, but that's not as hard as you might think, you just have to make a habit of it.

This means the worst case scenario -- hard drive failure, malware infection, etc. -- you can restore the entire system to it state at the moment you imaged it. I usually image the main partition with the OS and the programs once every 3-6 months. It's amazing how much tweaking and stuff you do over time that is a major pain in the tuckus to recover from in the event of a malware infection. Drivers you've forgotten where they came from (or exactly which one they were), small softwares you've added, that kind of thing. Also, do each partition separately, there's always some little BS problem that pops up with any Big Ball o' Goo, and do the MBR with the "C" partition.

In general, Big Balls O' Goo are bad programming constructs, and there is a VERYspecial place in Hell for programmers/coders/software designers who implement them.

Think "The Registry" and you should have the kind of horrific shudder that ALL BBoG should instill in one.

If you're building computers, spring for an Ssd. Makes computing fun again.

JD Galt - It is possible. XP (or anything else) can't stop you from controlling which OS can be booted. Any sort of "boot loader" program will take over the machine's boot sector and let you determine which OS you want to boot. Most versions of Linux will handle this gracefully. If you already have Windows (any version) running and you install Linux, the setup routine will ask you if you would like to install a boot loader. The setup program is smart enough to examine your existing system to locate Windows and add it to the list of boot up choices. The next time to start your PC, a menu will appear asking you which OS you would like to run.

Windows is a bad neighbor when it comes to respecting other OS on your machine. It assumes Windows is the only thing you have and will ever want. So if you have a dual-boot (or more) pc and you reinstall Windows, it will overwrite the boot sector and make Windows the default boot OS. This can be fixed by booting back into Linux (from CD, DVD, USB) and reinstalling Linux's boot loader.

"Also — when you are setting up your system, DON’T take the Windows “default” of One Giant Partition To Rule Them All. I recommend breaking it up into at least three parts, The OS and any stuff that really, really really wants to be on the OS partition (drivers, small programs, and certain ill-behaved softwares), another one which you can place your programs onto for the most part, and the third for keeping most, if not all, of your data. Among other things, this means you can slam the OS/Programs image onto it without backing up your entire HD first to be certain you don’t miss anything important in your data (you still will, but it’s less likely to be critical stuff you lose) "

I tried that theory about 5 years ago with XP (I don't know if 7 handles this better) on both my computer and my mom's. I only had 2 partitions though, Windows and Everything Else. You absolutely need to be disciplined about where you install stuff. Mom was not, and ran the Windows partition out of space eventually. It required a rebuild, but fortunately she was ready to try 7 anyway at that point. The other problem is that, at least back in the day with XP and most games, while you could tell them to install to a different drive and they would mostly do that, they would have a handful of DLLs or something to install on the Windows partition. That meant that if I didn't keep my Windows partition image up to date, then a reimage would break most of my programs anyway.

The only thing worthwhile about that setup was data protection, in my opinion. It boggles my mind that Windows still does not have a backup utility like Time Machine on the Mac. I've had a Mac laptop for 5 years now, and while I wouldn't buy another one because of price and the price of accessories, Time Machine is worth its weight in gold. You can set up a Linux box to trick the Macs on your network into thinking that they're Time Capsules, and then backups are totally transparent, delta-based, and quite reliable.

nice box

btw, my experience with ubuntu has been awesome

and thanks for all that you do

regards

"They might succeed in this except that I give Windows about 2-3 years of remaining dominance and then Android and Linux will rapidly take over"

For a lot of home applications, yes. Business apps and systems will take a much longer time to migrate, even with virtualization and remote desktop technologies.

I agree that an SSD is the best PC upgrade one can make. 10 second boots, fast program loads for a select few programs, etc.

I have a computer upgrade in my near future. My overclocked i7 720 is feeling aged in certain games. I also want a tasteful case with lots of efficient heat removal. Too many enthusiast cases glow and look like a 14 year olds doodle of what Batman's computer would look like. (My current aftermarket CPU fan even glows.....)