How One Small Business Switched to Ubuntu

firenurse writes to point out a story in The Inquirer about how one small business switched to Ubuntu. It describes a maddening comedy of errors, a series of circular screw-ups among Microsoft, HP, and a RAID vendor. From the article: "You never quite wrap your head around how anti-consumer Microsoft's policies are until they bite you in the bum. Add in the customer antagonistic policies of its patsies, HP in this case, and vendors like Promise, and you have quite a recipe for pain. Guess what I did today?"

Self-serve versus pay-to-play

I imagine going the Linux route as a smaller business or individual is going to help a lot -- you have tons of free forums and enthusiasts to help you. In working at companies that used MS heavily, I can see a pattern--the bigger you are, the better service you get. For example, a huge computer chips manufacturer I worked at had several of their employees *on site* at Microsoft. A university I worked at - paying about $250,000/year for a site-wide software license - got less help, but still had inside contacts at Microsoft. And then you've got small/new businesses who may get an email a couple weeks later, if they're lucky.

Ubuntu is pretty good stuff.

Let me preface this by saying I ran almost every testing final release of Fedora. A couple of days ago I was trying to get Slash running on Core 6. A friend of mine said I should really try Ubuntu. We were on IRC, so i couldn't actually hear the tone of his voice, but it seemed to me be a pretty strong emphasis. Like "Try Ubuntu you idiot." :).. Well I did. I went and grabbed the 6.0.6 Dapper Server release. The install was painless. Once I was running there were several things I needed in order build stuff. Namely, build-essential, and things like that. Also Cpan was lets just say, interesting to get right, but it always is. So anyway. It took 3 minutes to get an apache 3.x series server with mod_perl up. Mysql was a breeze. Once the server was up, I decided to build scoop, just to get better. This is the first thing I had ever tried to build as far as a fairly powerful weblog product. The result? It works! If you doubt me, just click on my url. Now, i was just building scoop to learn. Not really gonna use it I don't think. The point is, Ubuntu rocks, and the longer term support from 6.0.6 is what I need if im gonna be doing some development. And the kernel aint half bad either. :P

Windows XP as a server?

That would have been disappointing even if you got it working.

Re:Windows XP as a server?

'Cause he didn't need a server?

This was an office with 4 workstations. They needed a place to dump files for access - not a server. He's gonna automate their backup to DVD (although I don't know why he needed the size disks he was using for 4 PCs - maybe he intends to keep a LOT of backups? Maybe it's video stuff?)

What branch office with 4 PCs is gonna pay God knows what for a Microsoft server license?

They'd be idiots. Even SBS is overkill.

There's a way to make it all work

I get paid by the hour, if you need me.

He was asking for it

Big name vendor + non-supported hardware. Any system consultant with a few years of experience should be able to tell you "don't do that".

Actually the guy in the article didn't know what he was doing and tries to blame Microsoft and HP for the mess that his lack of knowledge created.

If he had done this for even once in the past, he would have known what would happen. Very nice of him to practice with his clients' systems.

Re:He was asking for it

You're quite right: the solution he chose was non-optimal from the start. Why is he using desktop hardware to build a server? What has he used in the past? Why didn't he do more research? Clearly a 'professional' would not have made these mistakes. Obviously it is possible to deploy a properly functioning Windows server to do what the guy wanted to do.

But that's not exactly the point of the article, I think. This was a rather small-scale installation, and he (with whatever knowledge, skills and money he had available) found it *impossibly frustrating* to get a Windows server running, while it was quite straight-forward to get a Linux server running.

This 'small-time market' is huge in aggregate. There are thousands of small businesses, home businesses, stores, etc. that have need of some kind of server. They don't have the money/time/expertise to set up a professional Windows server... but amazingly they do have the ability to set up a Linux server! Why? Because FLOSS empowers the user, is community-based, and doesn't impose artificial restrictions.

I've had similar experiences. Some years ago I was setting up a small server for a lab (file sharing, web-hosting, etc.). We had no need of a 'professional' system so I just set it up myself. First with Windows (didn't work out very well) and then I scrapped the system and used Linux instead. Even with my limited (at the time) knowledge of Linux, I was able to get a powerful, functional, and stable server system (still running, has never crashed). It was certainly as professional as it needed to be for our purposes.

The point is that FLOSS empowers the 'little guy' to get something working without hassles, whereas proprietary solutions are usually focused on the 'big guys' and create artificial barriers to actually doing what you want to do!

Re:He was asking for it

"Clearly a 'professional' would not have made these mistakes."

This is one of the things I always find so funny.

Which is it everyone? Is windows easy enough for anyone to set up and administer, or does it take a windows expert to do these things properly?

If it takes an expert to do it right, why does everyone seem to insist that it has to be done by Grandma when it comes to Linux?

all the best,

drew

Re:He was asking for it

OK, enough. Yes, grandmas do install servers. I've got four beautiful grandbabies and a Linux webserver which I set up almost 3 years ago. I have been running Linux on my desktop for about 5 years, I actually remember 'dependency hell'.

I understand that this phantom 'grandma' is a stereotypical inexperienced user, but its a new year, so lets pick someone else to be the idiot. Like blondes or Republicans. Thanks.

Proprietors don't share user's philosophy.

Big name vendor + non-supported hardware. Any system consultant with a few years of experience should be able to tell you "don't do that".

Anyone who confuses "support" with proprietary software is not working in their client's best interests. Proprietors drop software maintenance to get users on the upgrade treadmill. Proprietors ostensibly act motivated by profit, but users can find computers that do their job well after the hardware is no longer profitable. Consultants ought to promote the use of free software drivers and firmware (or, preferably, no firmware needed at all) so that their clients can leverage the talents of a free market of developers to improve and maintain the software needed to make all hardware work with any system. Separating users from their freedom is not fiscally sound for users.

Joke's on him

Microsoft lost this chain for sure on the server side. If it doesn't think their brain dead policies are costing them money, I am proof positive that they are

Unless he somehow wrangled a refund out of HP for the copy of XP he didn't use, then Microsoft still got paid, thus their "braindead policy" isn't costing them a nickel. They're just making money on a copy of Windows they don't need to support.

On the one hand this guy describes the branch office as "no big deal, done it a thousand times before", then proceeds to use a desktop machine with a 3rd party RAID as a server running XP and is surprised when it didn't work? That's what I don't really get about this article.

World Turned Upside Down

``You never quite wrap your head around how anti-consumer Microsoft's policies...''

Wait, now it's _Microsoft_ who has anti-consumer policies, not Linux? Did the world turn upside down while I was partying may ass off? Could this be the year of Linux on the desktop? ;-)

So close...

Looks like the poster had a 'real' Windows CD, but the license key he was trying to use was for the brain dead OEM version. Been there, done that. The trick is to transform a real CD into what HP (and all the other hardware vendors) should be including - a Windows install CD that works with the key on the sticker.

So look at the 'pre-installed' media, find the c:\i386\setupp.ini file that should be on the HDD. Build yourself a Windows install CD using NLite (because you should also trim th fat as long as you are going to be in there, along with adding drivers, security patches, etc) from some other source. Replace the setupp.ini file and it will use the OEM key. This won't turn an OEM version into an activation free volume version, but you can go the other way.

Did I mention nlite lets you add drivers to the install media? (grin) A must for those who have SATA drives.

You have to be kidding..

First of all, its called using the right tool for the right job. When you buy an OEM desktop you get OEM windows, you *CAN* buy the CD for an extra 10-20 bucks with most places and if you register as a reseller you can get much more. (If you're a microsoft partner you can just sell another license through your partner advantage program and use your own cd's/media for install) (free to join program). Finding Media is probably the easiest job of any techie.

Secondly, don't use Windows XP to be a server. It really isn't much more and sometimes cheaper to get a system pre-installed with SBS 2003 R2 and you get Exchange and other features built in not to mention a true comparison against Linux resource/functionality wise.

Terribly inaccurate and to say the least a very inept technician and company at work here.

My biggest selling "managed service" for small/medium sized businesses isn't my linux solution but my sbs 2003 r2 solution because for most people it not only saves money but provides tons of features from easy to configure remote access to sharing in sharepoint to cenralized ad administration/logins/access restrictions to built in exchange and with the advanced version sql server access.

I would never sell someone a desktop as a server solution simply because your selling yourself short. If cost savings was an issue buy a refurb server system and put whatever linux you want on it.

Re:You have to be kidding..

Ah yes. SBS. The lovely "server" from Microsoft that has all "services" rolled together. As in "you can't uninstall and reinstall a broken service without reloading the entire OS". The one where a slight problem with one service affects everything on the box. No thanks. I'll stick with W2K3 STD.

Re:You have to be kidding..

I would never sell someone a desktop as a server solution simply because your selling yourself short.

Typical lame duck Microsoft 'Gold Partner' response I've heard a thousand times over. I really don't know how the fuck them guys stay in business.

It really depends on what he's using it for, doesn't it? If it's just to use as a simple file and print server, or as a machine on the network to host a third party application that many small businesses tend to use, then why in hell's name is he going to fork out more money for SBS with a ton of things he'll never use and some things he'll never be able to use properly (Terminal Services springs to mind) and where he can't get more than one on the same network? Yes, you guessed it, that's an artificial Microsoft restriction in SBS *slaps forhead*.

The situation sucks, but is Linux the answer?

I have been bitten by every single problem mentioned in that article. Bad OEM "revogery disks" and MS licensing restrictions that prevent one from using an alternative install disks are one of the biggest single problems facing those of us that support very small businesses professionally. Say what you want about Dell... at least they include real windows install disks.

However, I have to question the judgement of the author. First of all, what kind of consultant deploys branch offices "weekly" and didn't know about these problems in advance? Anyone with much experience would know about (a) how difficult it is to move windows from one storage subsystem to another, (b) that HP uses bad recovery disks, and (c) that RAID installs require a floppy.

In addition, I question the use of Linux in this situation... perhaps it was his only way out of a bad recommendation to a client, but the problem is that there are *very* few Linux-savv consultants servicing businesses this size. For this reason alone I don't deploy Linux solutions... I can't find subcontractors who can back me up when I'm on vacation or sick, and should I stop working with a client, I don't want to leave them high and dry. Most consultants I know replace Linux servers with windows because they simply can't support it.

Finally, there's a much better way to do what he's trying to do: a NAS appliance. If all you need is some shared storage, printer sharing and the occasional backup, one of the many small business NAS devices out there (Infrant [infrant.com], Snap / Adaptec [snapappliance.com], Buffalo [buffalotech.com], etc...) will do so with greater reliability and less complexity than a PC-based server.

-R

One thing bothers me...

The article says that you will not receive neither XP installation disk nor a valid XP Product Key. All HP hardware that I have been using have had a rescue CD set, vanilla XP installation CD (although, the CD has HP label) and a Product Key sticker glued to the machine. The Key works with the installation CD, but the activation process has to be done over the phone.

This is the situation in Finland. Does HP have different policies in other countries? I'm just curious to know if there just are different policies in different countries or is this some completely new policy that HP started using just recently?

Not that revolutionary

The title of this article suggests he switched all the computers over to Ubuntu when really he just installed it on the RAID server. This seems like it would be very common for small networks.

Personally, I have a UNIX box running file and printer sharing for a few windows computers. No one would ever know I didn't run windows on the server unless I told them. No one who works in the office is going to know he is using Linux or care, they will see XP on their desktops and life goes on. IMO the only way this "story" would come close to qualifying as a story is if his workstations all ran Ubuntu.

Well Duh!

Ok who else doesn't believe the line: "It started out quite simply, a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week.", from the article?

I have been a consultant (my own business) working exclsuively with small bussiness for quite some time & before I ever started doign that I'd have told him he was a frickin' moron. HP doesn't support other hardware on their _restore_ CD's, well friggin' DUH! Hey moron how can you not know this if you 'a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week'. If you had you'd know this already and wouldn't have screwed with the HP disks at all & would know you need a real OS disk.

After that you blame Promise's CD... Yet lots of vendors do that... Hell lots of motherboard vendors do that! It's why I have a LS120 drive I use that is never installed in systems, but lets me get stuff loaded at that fun part of the install where I have to have a 'floppy type device' to load anything...

Really two things come to mind that sum up the solution to his whole problem: Either convince HP to customize a machine to your needs (and keep their support which you btw killed when modifying their box anyways and is the only real reason to buy from a OEM vendor anyways) or Build the darn box yourself so you can customize it as you want with a real OS CD! Problem solved.

It may be nice Linux 'solved' your problem, but your problem was caused by you for not already knowing what you were walking into.

Headline sloppiness (again)

The business didn't "switch to Ubuntu". That phrase implies that they suddenly stopped using any Windows systems. In fact, they made the much smaller step of converting their servers to Ubuntu. Linux has always been a much easier sell in serverland, because on servers you don't have all the application lock-in that makes it hard to get end users to give up Windows.

Similar Thing Happened to Me

At one time, my boss was as wedded to Microsoft as they come, mainly because that was all he knew. Over time, that view changed mainly because of the hoops we had to jump through as a small IT business doing things for SMBs, and the unbelievable expense for pointless things with an all Microsoft approach.

The licensing bollocks in the article of being squeezed into buying a full copy of XP, or Windows Server, not to mention the excruciating amount of time you spend wading through the treacle, is just the tip of the iceberg, and is not something I see in very many TCO studies ;-).

The final straw was Terminal Services, which to this day, is the one thing that pisses me off just about the most with Windows and Windows Servers. You actually need to run a separate service, or even a separate Windows Server, just to track Client Access Licenses (which you pay for) so that users can get access to all their applications. Anything that goes wrong with TS is nearly always licensing related, and has nothing to do whatever with the software itself. The sole reason why this is as difficult as it is is because remote applications like this seriously threatens Microsoft's reliance and monopoly over fat clients, so they got in quick and closed what they saw as a loophole. Their approach is to then make the thin client approach just as expensive and more difficult. Well, f*** off. We wanted to spend our money on things that were going to make things better and actually get us ahead of the loser competition.

I know SBS is held up as this great white hope for IT in small businesses, but I find the whole thing so limiting that we can very rarely give a 'Yes' answer to a client without asking for several thousands of whatever currency you wish before we even start and disappearing for several weeks. I mention these problems we have had calmly to many Microsoft resellers and 'Gold Partner' IT companies and they get very visibly upset, because they just don't know what to say.

As a business, we then went off into a fantastic world of an Ubuntu server running separate VMware or Xen Virtual Machines, remote desktop applications using Nomachine's fantastic NX Server, and with no ridiculous CAL overhead where we could ditch Windows applications, SQL Ledger, Zimbra, Fedora Directory Server and many others. The whole set up we have internally does so much more than a Windows and Microsoft set up does, it just isn't believable.

No doubt I'll get some extremely witty and informative reply to this comment about how someone managed to bork their Grub and Ubuntu installation into not booting. Oh, I see we've already had one ;-).

Charlie, Get Your Money Back

I hope Charlie will now demand that HP refund him the pittance they actually give you back when you demand your "I'm not using Windows on this machine" refund, as permitted for in the Windows ToS.

Nothing like...

There's nothing like frustration to help one get over the fear of jumping out of the M$ boat and swimming with penguins.

"Desktops are under evaluation, but Microsoft lost this chain for sure on the server side."

Linux desktop migration seems to be a more considered option these days. Vista problems and restrictions are likely to drive more small businesses as well as enterprise customers toward Linux desktop adoption.

One thing he did miss

Even if he did manage to get the HP XP installed with the Promise RAID drivers, he probably wasn't ready to enable 48-bit LBA to handle ATAPI drives larger than 137GB under XP [microsoft.com].

Another example of excellent reporting...

Another example of excellent reporting, that is if you like blaming Microsoft for every problem. As far as I am aware there is no Microsoft policy that prohibits the shipping of Windows CDs with the computers. It's just that the companies don't like them because they are a pain to support compared to restore discs.

All the blame here lies on one company, HP. They didn't ship them a Windows CD which would have fixed it right up. But any good computer tech would have had a Windows XP Pro OEM CD that they could have used to install the OS (Microsoft sends an entire album of current OEM CDs to partners). Sure you would have to call up to activate the OS, but it would have gotten him up and running.

Just run your own support

The best strategy for a business is to start your small business with an IT department that can handle your IT infrastructure, and then expand it to what you need. Consultants have to hill-climb; they have to say, "There's a problem here, we'll fix it. If you find another problem (possibly exposed by this fix), call us again." Your own IT department should have documentation and experience with your network, so they know if they do X it will break Y but they can do Z to get Y working properly and move ahead safely.

When you do open source, you have a more interesting plan of motion. It's still a matter of keeping your own IT department trim yet functional to avoid the nightmare of consultant attempts to address narrow problems from a narrow viewpoint; but you can do something interesting with that IT department. Set aside a budget to keep a small number of programmer-software-engineers on hand, and have them focus on "Market Softening in the Business Interests." Simply put, have them work with your upstream maintainer, write code, devise plans, and create applications and features in applications that are good for your business.

Anything such a team would produce has to be public by nature of their work, so they should never be handed any kind of business-critical confidential information; they could safely work with not only the community, but with other such groups in other businesses in some form of "alliance" like everyone likes to form these days. This means that you've not only got a good hand in controlling the market to favor your business; but you've also got both good PR and good business relations with other potential business partners and even with your rivals (rivals can become partners). It creates a less hostile atmosphere for businesses; it's still competitive, but you've only got your competition against you instead of the whole software market.

so much for my Karma

I hate to say it but this really sounds like incompetence on the part of the installer in a few ways. An OEM version of XP is licensed for the hardware it is sold with, anybody that does this "almost every week" should know that and not have encountered this problem. Disagree with the policy, fine, but he still should have known it. Also, SURPRISE, your OEM key won't work on a retail version! DUH!

O, that aside e could have slipstreamed the drivers into the install as knowledgeable admins often do. (sounds simple, I haven't done it myself though) or perhaps purchased the operating system that was appropriate for the implementation, namely win 2003 standard.

I got no beef with using Linux, it sounds like it could work in this case, but the incompetence sounds like the author's not the manufacturers.

Misleading Summary - Business Switched Server Only

According to TFA - the business only installed Ubuntu on the server box. It looks like the rest of the machines are still on XP. Yeah, they are employing a linux distro where vendor/MS licensing failed them, but it's not like they completely went FOSS in the whole organization or anything. This summary is overblowing Linux usage for this particular organization.

Ubuntu Fan

I just gave it a shot a few days ago. All I can say is WOW [blogspot.com].

If you have not tried Ubuntu, please do. I can't say enough good things about it.

As much as I would like to blame MS...

For the moderately near future, I don't see a linux distribution locking out a person from supporting it themselves like MS does (though getting support from your linux/hw vendor may be complicated by his actions). However, I do think the installers plan and execution was not good for a business install. Actually, it's not that good for home installs either.

One thing:

its patsies, HP

In this case, HP is not just being MS' patsy, they are serving their own interest. MS didn't request them cripple their customization, they crippled it themselves to encourage any upgrades to be HP supplied, not third party.

The key sentence where everything went to crap:

Out came the anaemic 40GB drive from one HP, and in when the Promise controller and two WD 200GB SATA drives.

In the first part, he drank the vendor kool-aid and got their customized XP install. That's a valid choice in and of itself. Then he grabbed a third-party controller card and expected the stuff HP provided to play nice with it. HP didn't want him to do that, they wanted him to buy a presumably much more expensive HP branded controller to do the same thing. HP's install CD not accomodating that is hardly a surprise, and hardly a MS decision. The different keys for retail and OEM reflect the different pricing tiers. .

If they are a particularly small business, not going with one vendor is a valid choice, but you best put it together via all-third-party parts and get a generic OEM windows disk. If you can get a no-windows discount on the HP system, and use that discount for a different license, you can go with a non-restricted install media set. You do, however, in this way accept a higher degree of risk (problem determination falls squarely on your shoulders, and your vendors may disagree with your conclusion and blame other parts..). If you run on thin margins and time is not uber-critical for systems, this may be the appropriate path

If you drink the vendor kool-aid and get their hardware and software, you've drunk the kool-aid and as a consequence, you ought buy from HP your upgrades. You can't expect something put together by them to work for hardware configurations they would explicitly not support. This is more expensive if you buy any significant number of upgrades, but that's the course you signed up for by implicitly restricting yourself to their install media. By mixing and matching, you get the negatives of above with respect to support (HP can blame the generic Promise chipped card, and vice-versa), but you pay more for the privilege of support that is compromised by the choice.

I'm a professional linux guy working for a hardware vendor. We invest a lot of time and money in making sure all our hardware works well for given linux distributions. I occasionally have to work with a customer who ultimately admits to third party options in the systems that usually end up the cause of their problem for reasons more purely technical than artificial CD key barriers. I'm a little defensive of this circumstance because even without artificial key measures introduced, this strategy can screw you over regardless of your software platform.

This is how Microsoft makes money

You buy an OEM copy of the OS but then find you can't use it. So you then have to go out and buy a full copy.

How many Windows licences are there out there compared to PCs? must be nearly two CDs for every PC running Windows. Many corporations buy PCs with XP Home and wipe that and install XP Professional.

This guy does work without a Bart's PE CD?

I don't go anywhere to do any work without the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows! As long as the system can support XP (older machines can't, so I have to use the older Boot CD which is DOS-based), I can boot XP anywhere and have numerous utilities available. In fact, my UBCDW has so many antivirus and antispyware utilities on it that I'm thinking of making a couple more CDs with different sets of utilities on it to do other things. I'd do a DVD version, but a lot of people still don't have DVD drives in their machines.

I'm going to add some utilities to several 2GB flash drives and eventually convert one of my older 60GB hard drives into an external USB inclosure and load it up with EVERYTHING - along with a boot CD to access it.

Then - bring it on! I've got over 1600 utilities that can pretty much handle any issue I'm likely to encounter (knock wood, tomorrow I'll run into one I can't...)

Gotta admit, though, the guy was screwed when there were no drivers on the Promise disk. And it is a pain that you can't use a vanilla XP install CD to replace system files in a Systems File Check (although I understand the security reasons for it) or do much of anything else except run a Restore Console.

Something from Charlie "broken" Demerjian?

Does this man ever shutup with his whinging and moaning?

FFS. Yes it's stupid. But all you needed to do was just use the original drive or any ATA drive for that matter thats not attached to some proprietary RAID controller for a boot drive, install the promise drivers via their stupid tool and it all just would have worked.

He needs to be hit with a clue-by-four.

No driver CD?

What I don't understand about this story:

"noticed the second problem, the #($ing Promise CD doesn't have drivers on it! No, I am not kidding, they ship the card with a CD, but that CD has no drivers on it! Honestly."

The guy is mad because he doesn't have the drivers on a CD (so much so he writes up an article on-line about this fact) but he never bothers to hit up Promise's website to download the drivers [promise.com].

I'm all for people using whatever OS they need to get the job done, but this article seems a bit dodgy. If the client wanted XP for a file server, then buy him a copy of the OS and invoice him for it (or call HP and tell them your needs and see if they have a different install disk). I'm sure the extra XP license would cost less then paying this guy to fart around for a couple hours attempting to install XP from a restore disk.

If Ubuntu will work for him, fine, use that.

But why install Ubuntu and write up a mini-rant just because you don't have the basic skills to download some drivers on-line.

Better bring extra cartridges.

...Biting back my fervent desire to throw this mess out of a window, get a gun, and go to Redmond...

Man! I know that feeling. You have my deepest sympathies.

Just to clarify...

Let me get this straight, just so I know I'm not reading this wrong:

Customer asked for:
A new branch office (presumably they have others) with a handful of Windows workstations and a Windows file server

Contract IT guy gave them:
Some Windows workstations and a Linux file server because he couldn't get Windows working

Customer's head office presumably said:
"You're fired. We'll get someone who *can* give us what we asked for. If we want to use Linux will ask for it."

Restore disks: evil upon evil

I was helping a friend get set up with a new computer. It's a sweet, sweet box from HP: Athlon 4200+ X2 processor, 1GB RAM, DVD burner. It's an HP Pavilion a1647c-b [hp.com], and it cost US$900 (which included a nice widescreen LCD display with both analog and DVI inputs!). I upgraded it with a passively-cooled nVidia 7600GS graphics card, so it's now using the DVI input on the LCD display, and the display looks great.

I wanted to install Ubuntu on it, but I haven't done so yet. Here's why.

It turns out that the system doesn't come with an XP install CD. No surprise, Microsoft requires OEMs to provide "recovery disks". But it turns out that the system doesn't come with recovery disks either! It comes with a utility for burning a custom set of recovery disks. The manual says you are permitted to burn exactly one set of recovery disks.

It turns out that you need 18 blank CD-R disks, or 3 blank DVD+/-R disks, to burn your custom set of recovery disks! So I went home without installing Ubuntu.

The next day he bought a stack of DVD+R disks, and I went back. The recovery disk utility took a long time to burn the first disk, and then it said "verifying" and sat there, indicating 1% progress. So I left again without installing Ubuntu. He left it running and it never did finish.

So now he has a Windows system that he doesn't dare use, because if it gets messed up, there is no way to restore it. He told me he would call HP tech support but I haven't heard back from him.

By the way: it would have been easy to install Ubuntu before the first boot-up. I booted an Ubuntu CD and used it as a live CD, and looked over the hard disk without modifying it. Initially there was a 20GB partition and a whole bunch of empty space. On the first boot, the Windows system expanded the NTFS file system to fill the whole bunch of empty space. If I had just created a couple of partitions at the end of the empty space, I'm pretty sure that Windows would have left them alone, and then it would have been trivial to install Ubuntu. (Of course, if I had done that, I would have had a nagging worry that the recovery disk fiasco was somehow my fault. Because I didn't touch the machine before first boot, it's clear that the recovery meltdown has nothing to do with me.)

I was tempted to just grab a copy of XP and do a full re-install. But this particular system came with XP Media Center Edition, and I have no idea where I can get an install CD of XP MCE (or how much it would cost).

I'm half-tempted to buy one of these systems, though, because it was a good value for the money, and Ubuntu recognized all the hardware, right down to the flash card reader.

steveha

Microsoft made their money

I'm sorry I didn't read all of the comments, but didn't microsoft make their money and run type of thing. At the end of the article the guy said Microsoft must be loosing money because of "brain-dead" policies.

But he has a valid Microsoft license, that came with the computer, and the system is already paid for. So Microsoft made their money, and now doesn't have to support their system. Even if the business won't go with Windows servers in the future, the way they seem to purchase hardware would seem that they will continue recieving pre-built computers with windows, then install linux on it. HP and Microsoft will continue making money without really loosing the business.

Just my thoughts on the subject anyways.

Don't let people play with your hardware!!

Speaking as somebody who's been doing that sort of stuff as awhile....
This guy gives all wannabe computer consultants a bad rep.
1.) NEVER EVER TEST ON A CLIENT'S SYSTEM
- You should test on your own equipment to see how hard the controller is to setup etc. CLient's systems are handsoff. Preferably you pre-setup the raid controller and initialize the raid controller ahead of time. Doesn't waste your time onsite, and if you want to make extra cash, you can bill client for it while you working on other projects.
2.) Whitebox OEM copies of XP are different than HP/Dell/IBM copies. They're the same OS, but the licensing is different.That's one of the reasons those systems are cheaper than a regular whitebox system - Microsoft gives them a special copy of Windows, without the media and the license that states you only get a recovery cd preloaded, not a full copy.
3.) .... ugh.... makes my brain hurt. i don't want to continue on.

It actually has nothing to do with Microsoft sorry to say :(
User bought a proprietary hardware box, got a guy who thought he knew what he was doing.
I wonder how long the client was down/unable to use or access files because of this guys lack of knowledge and foreplanning?

I personally would have recommended a Linux machine from the start, BUT it could be done on a windows 98/2k/xp machine just as well if the person implementing it knew anything.

Please, i hope you dont call yourself a computer guy. You give a bad rep to everybody in the industry :(

Wrong tools for the job

In reference to the article, the guy was trying to take an HP consumer desktop and turn it into a file server. What the hell did he expect? He was doing it with Windows XP as the host OS too? What a jackhole. Then he whined about the whole experience?

If he wanted a whitebox file server then he should have built it himself. Bagging on HP is kind of stupid given that you can easily install a few different flavors of Linux on a Proliant with full driver support.

In short, the guy wasn't using the right tools for the job and he got bit in the butt by it. If he had planned ahead instead of just assuming that everything would work right then he could have avoided the problems that he ran into.

Granted, Ubuntu worked for him better than the Windows options that he had so chalk it up as a "win" for Ubuntu.

Had similar problem with Dell desktops

This probably belongs well up in the replies, but I can't scroll through any more discussions about Ubuntu (call me lazy :)

I ran into the problem of incompatible keys while working on two Dell desktops.

Neither machine would boot from Dell's own Windows XP Home Edition CD, and of course the key on the Dell COAs would not work with an OEM CD, which would boot.

So I downloaded the install floppies from Microsoft. The six floppies would not boot the Dell CD either, since the CD label differs from the OEM CD, and even though I eventually was able to get the system running from the Dell CD (do not ask me how, I do not remember, mostly due to the frustration of the whole situation and the time spent) the Dell key would not work, apparently due to the difference in the boot floppies.

Microsoft will not help because the CD is OEM (and Dell Special OEM at that,) and Dell will not help because the computers are out of warranty. So I had to tell the owner that the only way for me to get Windows installed on the computers was for him to buy the operating system he already owned. I told him just to buy the upgrade, and I fudged it with a Windows 98 OEM CD I have.

I really do not care that this technically violates the licensing agreement: he owns the operating system already and should not have had to purchase it again. Microsoft can kiss my ass for making my job so much more difficult. And for that matter, so can Dell.

Converted to Linux? Not really.

If you read the article, the server software was setup to Linux, not the entre small office. It's not unusual for small or large offices to run Linux. My company has many Linux boxes even though this is a primarily Microsoft House. I have much love for each. The ease of use and the support structure of Microsoft, and the grass-root support and stability of the Linux systems.

As an aside, one of the funny things that we do is run Linux boxes with virtual Windows Servers on them. I don't think that Microsoft ever envisioned that. :-)

Switch Unnecessary. USER ERROR

First off, nothing there was Microsoft's fault. MS does not prevent manufacturer's from shipping a Windows Disk. In fact, Gateway often still does (along with Dell, and some HPs). In fact, for quite some time, these machines were ONLY coming with an OS disk (which is JUST the OS, nothing more, and it's just your average run of the mill OEM XP, no nasty surprises or anything), and you were REQUIRED to burn your applications/drivers disk.

These days, not many manufactureres include any kind of recovery disks, though there are a few. But what you WILL see, is that everyone who DOES include SOMETHING (except Toshiba, who uses a Ghost image) includes a disk with ONLY THE OS. As for your key not working, MS uses different a algorythm (i should hang for butchering that) for each XP Version. OEM XP Home, OEM XP Pro, OEM XP Media Center, Retail XP Home, Retail XP Pro, Corporate XP Pro, OEM XP Home Service Pack 1, OEM XP Pro Service Pack 1, etc. etc. etc. So no, that key on the side of your machine is not going to work with the "Disks you have lying around". I have to wonder, with you so eager to jump to Ubuntu as a "solution", why do you have so many XP disks laying about?

Anyway, the no floppy thing does suck. Setting up a RAID these days on OEM machines is a nightmare, but only because it's very much a pain in the ass (XP is 5 years old, OEM machines no longer have floppy drives, etc.), but is is definitely doable. What I'm wondering though, is what you were using XP as a server for, and where you aquired this machine. And why would you be using an OEM retail (kinda sounds like this is the case) machine as a "Server" anyway?

Interestingly enough this reminds me a lot of a sale that I was recently asked about. A gentleman wanted to set up a server for his office, with 3 clients. I talked to him for quite a while. Retail machines are cheap, and depending on the exact needs, they may work well. But for christ's sake, don't be an idiot setting it up. And don't blame the companies for your ignorance. Gawd that pisses me off.

Typical noobie error

I've been working on Windows boxes for quite a while, both in my own company, as a tech for a larger company, and now a network administrator. The problem this guy ran into was actually quite simple. There are several versions of Windows XP (OEM, VL, Retail, AP, etc). You can't use one disk with another, period. No big deal, tons of ways to get your hands on the various version discs.

I question what the heck this guy is doing and thinking. If he has the ability to set up an Ubuntu box, heck if he even knows how to set up a basic RAID 1 array, I'm baffled as to why he doesn't know the answer to his own question. Anyone who reads this article who themselves is tech saavy knows this guy is a bit of a dolt. How on earth he got his story published on anything other than his blog is beyond me.

And in response to a lot of peoples' jargon about an XP Pro box not being able to make a good server - why not?? I've worked as an independent contractor for small business IT needs for half a dozen years, and there's no reason why a simple XP pro box can't make a decent, cost effective server. Albiet, it all boils down to the clients' needs, but for a typical small business (and by small business I mean less than 30 employees), like the one mentioned here, all they typically need is something decent that will host files where their files are reasonable safe. An XP pro box set up properly can make for an appropriate server. RAID 1, backup scripts (or 3rd party programs), a UPS, a couple network shares is what half of the world runs on. Remember, 80% of business in North America is small business (sub 30 people).

All of this doesn't change the fact that quite clearly this guy doesn't know what he's doing. 2 minutes on google would have answered his question.

Re:Typical noobie error

File serving in non-server editions of Windows is capped to 10 connections. 5 in home editions. IIS also has a 10 connection limit, though you can bump it up to 40.

this is most techs

I am surprised that nobody here has stated the obvious about how the guy could have gone about getting the drivers for his raid controller.

He could have done the following:

1) Downloaded them off of the internet.
2) He could have used his laptop to make the floppy from the CD. I assume he must have had a laptop if he was doing this stuff once a week. At the very least he could have used another computer.
3) Attempted to extract the drivers from whatever compressed file they resided in on the CD.

He would not have had to re-install windows, all he had to do was install the raid controller, and install the drivers for it, and continue booting from XP on the old drive, thats of course assuming there was room for it.

10 reboots to figure out how to get into the raid controller bios pretty much sums it up. I wonder how many reboots it took to figure out how to get into the system bios.

/. has changed

The comments and the moderation on this article made something very clear to me.

The bias on Slashdot has shifted quite significantly away from Linux and towards MS over the last two or three years.

Why? Astroturfing, wider audience, what?

My own suspicion is that PR people who spend all day on the web, spend a lot more time (per head) reading and commenting on Slashdot, they therefore all end up with high karma and probably get mod points often (I am not sure how /. decides to award mod points), have a heavy influence on meta-moderation, and certainly use all their mod points (I rraely do, I am too busy).

doh

I was really looking forward to seeing how this person actually implemented a Linux server in their business.. I only read about the anti=MS spam.. which is fine and all, but people need to see why Linux works so well.. there were no steps regarding the installation process.. it was more like a big rant about 3rd party HD drivers.. i agree, HP should have thought much more about that.. those restore cd's are a big fuckin joke.. but i'd like to hear the specifics and technicalities one must go through when migrating to Linux.. unfortunately this article didn't not provide that.

Kind of new at this?

The author sets up offices "all the time" but...

1) Bought an HP computer for an office (so you get those restore CDs and not the full OS as Dell sends)
2) "occasional" backups?
3) Not realizing how XP keys work

And that's just the first few paragraphs...

Not Entirely Accurate

Some of the accusations made against HP and Microsoft in this blog are not accurate. OEM's are indeed allowed to distribute media from Microsoft, but many chose to distribute a drive image or a custumized install disk. The reason for this is 1) If they use a drive image, an installation can take as little at 10-15 minutes and 2) If they use a custom disk, they can slipstream updates, drivers, and the software that comes with the machine on the disk.

Also, the key that is on the computer does NOT only work with the disk. It is an OEM license and one can therefore use an XP OEM disk to install using this key. This is the same with Dell, Lenovo/IBM, Toshiba, Alienware...the list goes on and on. These manufacturers all get OEM licenses that work with a clean XP OEM disk.

I read that story earlier today...

...and I was suprised that he tried all of the steps that he listed, and never tried the one step that was virtually guaranteed to work. All he had to do was the following:

1. Install the Windows OS on the original hard drive.
2. Install the Promise TX2300 RAID card and hard disks onto that system and make sure that the OS recognizes it and loads drivers.
3. Set up his mirrored array.
4. Use Ghost, TrueImage, or some other imaging software (Acronis has a free 15-day trial) to clone the original OS drive onto the mirrored array, resizing the destination partitions in the process.
5. Remove the old disk and boot the system.

I have done this several times using various array controllers on various hardware, including he TX2300 on a pair of HP desktops. It's not only easy, it works every time.

PEBKAC

You don't buy a Desktop from HP and expect it to work great as a backup server. You buy a backup server or you build one yourself with an OEM Windows License. Granted the RAID should have had a driver that loads from CD. That's their stupid fault, you can't go blaming Microsoft and HP for this problem.

*kisses karma goodbye*

Is that a secret code that gets you modded up on Slashdot?

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

The difference here is that you were having LEGITIMATE TECHNICAL ISSUES, as opposed to issues created by pencil pushers. Every problem the guy ran into was caused by either a total lack of thought on the manufacturers end (exe and no drivers), or intentional/malicious limiation (F6 driver install disabled, Windows Key issues).

bad harddrive

Ok,

1) I see your point. Coming from your perspective you've been betrayed by GRUB and Ubuntu. I've had problems with GRUB in the past myself, and until recently have been a staunch supporter of LILO. Have you by chance tried picking that instead to see if it gives you better luck? Occasionally machines have firmware configurations or drive topology that GRUB still just doesn't seem to like. Its far more rare these days but still completely possible. Keep in mind you ARE using an operating system that was not pre-tested and pre-installed for the machine you're using. Unforseen complications can arise.

2) I'm only making a guess but it really *does* sound like you might have a bad harddrive. If the boot sector failed it really could have been working fine with windows for years until you tried to write something new to it, exposing the hardware failure by corrupting otherwise accessible data in the master boot record with a failed write. One way to check this would be to try re-installing windows of course, or any other distro/operating system.

3) I don't like Ubuntu either because its failed me the only two times I've tried it as well. Perhaps your machine is a "fringe case" like mine was. Issues and workarounds (or at least confirmation of non-working status) based on your motherboard's IDE/SCSI/SATA harddrive controller could exist online.

Anyway... Thats all the advice I have for you. I wish you luck.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

I'm sorry your attempt with Ubuntu didn't work (I had a similar problem with old hardware and the fix was to use LILO instead of GRUB, btw).

However what's interesting is the *differences* between your problems with Ubuntu and what TFA describes as problems with proprietary vendors. With the proprietary vendors, they basically said 'either you use our configuration or screw off'... The hardware, software, and so forth were all designed to work one single way, and if you want to deviate from that, you're on your own.

Your experience with Ubuntu was just the opposite: dozens of people (apparently) gave you lots of different suggestions for what might be wrong and how to fix it. It looks like in your case it didn't work out in the end, but it is certainly interesting how much free support you received for a product you didn't pay for.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

We wouldn't have this problem if people could readily purchase machines with $LINUX_DISTRO preinstalled.
And the reason we don't see more of that is because of Microsoft's historic tendancy to punish (or at
least make life difficult for) vendors that try.

Re:Comedy of luser errors

a) Rebooting and reinstalling will only fix it if you made a mistake or you are using a poorly designed flaky OS. If it doesn't work the first time, why would it work a second?

b) Last time I checked, Ubuntu doubled as a live CD. In fact, how are you installing Ubuntu if you can't boot the CD?

c) Official GNU projects have the same poor code quality as MS. Stallman's goal is to take over the world, not produce a workable system. Don't use GRUB if you can avoid it.

"Okay, get your Windows CD." Computer's four years old and I've never had to use it. I really don't know where it is. "Oh, well, we don't help software pirates here. ...

d) This is a MS / commercial vendor problem. If you don't like copy protection and people accusing you of being a "pirate" even when you perchased a legit version of their software, then don't use their products. Especially if you are always losing the origional CD.

*Gets brother to fix entire mess.*

e) This is what you should have done in the first place. Someone who doesn't understand how computers work should not try to install an OS.

Comedy of OS installers

Let me quickly relate a recent experience. I installed Slackware on this machine a little while back. It took me two days, including one day to figure out how to set up Apache with a load of modules and Twiki. Kernel compiled, Apache compiled, ready to go.

More recently I had to install Windows XP Pro from an SP1 disk. It took me two days to set up Windows XP Pro with administrator and user accounts and get all my apps updated and working properly (or close enough with some apps running escalated privileges) in user mode.

My conclusion: Both Slackware and Windows are very difficult systems to build from scratch. If people had to install Windows themselves they would be as smart as Linux geeks.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

Why didn't you post a link to the thread on the ubuntu forums where this whole discussion took place, as you did last time you ranted about this? Is it because you've finally realised that you acted like a complete wanker there? Here's a link [ubuntuforums.org].

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

I had a same error trying to get Ubunutu running, as far as I could figure when you run the installer the IDE drive your installing to has to be the primary master drive, try install onto a slave, GRUB error 15. Try install with a SATA drive still plugged in? GRUB error 15. Try to install onto a SATA with IDE drives plugged in? GRUB error 15. As soon as the installation is completed you can switch it back.
 
The again with a debian installation I saw GRUB Error 15 & 18, on some old tired out machines which really did have knackered hard drives.
 
Microsoft may have an extremly awfull policy on windows disks but its the third party implementation which sucks not neccessarily Microsofts policy. Dell disks are like the HP ones described in the article, perhaps people should be demanding HP to make a better disk? My Medion MCE 2005 disk is a Windows MCE 2005 disk with Medion stamped on it instead of Microsoft (oh and they've modified it to load a Medion wall paper on completion) it installs the full range of XP vanilla drivers and I've seen Acer and Asus disks which act similary. Perhaps we should turn our attention to HP for creating for practical purposes a defunct windows disk rather than Microsoft for wanting the cheap copies of windows to be tied into the machine they were sold with. I don't necessarily agree with Microsofts policy but it seems that other companies don't decide to lock the disk in nearly as much and it was the lock in which made the disk useless.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

FYI, the Error 15 (File Not Found) is probably caused because GRUB (when running from inside Linux) has no way to work out which drive will be presented as 'drive 0' when GRUB is run during the boot process. The only real fix for this is to switch to an architecture with a decent pre-boot environment like Sparc, PowerPC, etc. The work-around is to correct the contents of /boot/grub/device.map and /boot/grub/menu.lst and then re-install GRUB.

Re:I smell several errors.

*If you have a copy of XP to use, guess what? The key that comes with the HP box is restricted to the version of Windows on the restore CD.

Yes, that's called a OEM key. They also have VLKs and Retail keys. Don't pirate.

How is it piracy to use a copy of the same version of the same OS on the same machine from a different CD? I understand that this is an antipiracy measure on Microsoft's part, but it got in the way of legitimate use here, as it not infrequently does.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

God damn, stop trolling Ubuntu threads you tool!

Your claims are demonstratively false [ubuntuforums.org].

You were rude to everyone in the thread, and most likely had a pirated version of windows to begin with (no install CDs)

In your above steps you say that you downloaded a CD image and burnt it then a few steps later it turns out you don't have a burner. How the hell did you burn it in the first place

Here's a tip, it is very useful to know what version of windows you were running. The steps to fix the install are different if you had Windows 98 or Windows XP.

I swear every time Slashdot posts anything about Ubuntu you rock up and tell the same story. I'm sorry but the reason you didn't get any help was because you are a dick and you didn't provide anyone with any helpful information.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

Really? GRUB's errors depend on what Windows version you're using?

I'm sorry, man, I'm a REALLY patient person, but even I wouldn't help you unless you stopped being such a dick.

Does your incredibly snide and degrading tone get you far in life? Because it doesn't work on the internet. Maybe you think you're being witty or something but you just come across as an angry jerk.

in a decade of using linux I've never come across a more helpful and patient community than Ubuntu. If you ask questions politely and provide the information that's requested, instead of acting like you are smarter than everyone else and you don't think their question is relevant, you might find you get a little bit more useful information. Just a tip.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

Wow. The boot sector of your disk was probably already borked, else you had a bad burn. Did you check the CD for defects (its in the menu on boot) before you installed? Did you run an integrity test on your disk before thinking about installing?

Re:How One Small Business Switched to Zune

No. How a business tried to run Linux on a Promise controller. The moment I see Promise and Linux in one sentence it is bad news. I have at least 3 servers with onboard Promises which cannot be used because they fail in a variety of wonderfull ways. 2 high end tyan boards and one Intel OEM board. For two of them I cannot use the binary shite Promise ships as I run Debian with custom kernels and Linux driver does not recognise the contoller at all or does not handle errors correctly. For the Intel board I cannot use any of the following - Promise binary drivers (tried under redhat), Linux built in drivers or the I2O mode and Intel in their infinite wisdom have made RAID mandatory (no way to switch the POS down to a "normal ide").

If I see Promise in the spec (and many small HP servers ship with it) my first reaction is to buy a 3ware or a HPT and chuck the POS out. I have had trouble with either of these, but much less compared to Promise.

Re:I smell several errors.

* -Never heard of this happening. I think he means HP restore CDs
I guess you've never been a reseller as I have. You get discounts, in exchange for following certain guidelines. One of the programs I participated in required the use of a restore CD in place of actual OEM disks. That was back in the 98/Me days though, I have no idea what the requirements are now for the volume resellers.

* -That's a driver issue. No drivers, no access to weird/different hardware.
True, but not making allowances for servicing the machine is a POOR design decision that directly affects the consumer. It's not like they failed to do something here, they intentionally disabled the ability to F6 and install additional support drivers. It's been going on for YEARS, and is a decision by the manufacturers to encourage replacement rather than repair.

* - Yes, that's called a OEM key. They also have VLKs and Retail keys. Don't pirate.
Brilliant, so as a tech I should have to purchase every one of the 7+ version of XP even though I don't even need the licenses? This ENCOURAGES piracy.

* -Nothing to do with FOSS/MS. I don't think he does this once a week. If so, this is new hardware and it's new to him. Not MS's problem.
It's promises problem, and a minor one. I run into it constantly. It's an easy fix, but WHY should a few KB worth of drivers be bundled in an EXE in the first place?

Re:I smell several errors.

1. Microsoft has had this policy in the past, at least for consumer systems. I think they might have dropped it but I know it existed. Even if they didn't- many manufacturers (by their own choice) provide a quick restore CD with few options. He has a valid point that the CD was possibly poorly built, however if it was this way that suggests he was trying to install a server on a desktop/workstation box rather on a box designed as a server. HP makes the (often correct but quite inflexible) assumption that people who buy a desktop won't use it as a server, and plan accordingly.

As for Promise, i dunno, i generally use 3ware/AMCC stuff myself. It's a bit pricier but all the controllers I've gotten from them have at least some dead-tree documentation, a CD (which DOES have a driver) and the windows install floppy.

I keep a USB floppy drive around for this purpose- when installing Windoze on odd hardware, often you NEED a floppy to give it the driver. And most BIOSes or win setup will figure out that a usb floppy drive is drive A: when there is no other floppy.

You're right about the OEM key but that doesn't stop it from being a royal PITA. I carry a windows OEM install cd around with me for exactly this purpose. Remember, piracy is when you steal something that isn't yours. One shouldn't have to do pirate-like cracking to get ones own software to work the way one wants it to.

So to sum it up, yes there are solutions to all this guy's problems and maybe if he was more experienced he coulda found them all. I could probably have made it work given a few hours.
**BUT**
the fact remains that many of these problems (crappy restore CDs, driver disks without drivers, OEM keys) exist because of poor choices by HP, MS and Promise. They all made the (incorrect) assumption that the system would be used only as shipped, in only that configuration, nothing more; and because of that assumption made it difficult or impossible for the user/customer to do so without extra expense.

(the important bit)
AS A RESULT, the customer decided that his life was being made unnecessarily difficult and went with a competing product (Ubuntu Linux) that solved his problems more easily.

To say that again- the customer decided that his problems, however fixable, were a waste of his time and he decided to use a competing product that had fewer problems. That is the essence of a free market, you know the whole build a better mouse trap bit?

If I had hired this guy I would pat him on the back and pay him- he decided that banging his head on the problem was counter-productive and he installed something else that he knew would work and I save money and time, because my solution is deployed faster and I don't have to pay for his time trying to make something work. As long as it doesn't miss some capability I will need later, I would be thrilled.

Re:Nice Work

I totally agree with you that there are other ways to skin this particular cat. However, the ability to use Microsoft's software to set up "impromptu" servers is part of the reason that Windows is so ubiquitous. A huge part of the Microsoft draw was that it took very little training or knowledge to set up simple file and print solutions for small businesses.

Ubuntu isn't such a bad solution either. It's probably less expensive (and more flexible) than a dedicated NAS. More reliable than trusting the bundled 40G hard drive and an external drive, and way less expensive than SBS.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

"Use a Live CD." Don't have one. "You mean you didn't burn that along with the install CD?" Didn't say to. "You mean you didn't try the install on a spare box first?" You're fucking kidding me, right? (This was before they combined them, geniuses.)

The Ubuntu install CD is also a live CD.

I sense you're trying to troll.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

The username "UbuntuDupe" says it all.

Yes, it does [ubuntuforums.org].

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

My God! You're so obsessed with this that you created a handle based on the problem. Whatever the difficulty was, get over it and get a life!

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

Actually, that story sounds (ironically) like my attempt to switch to Ubuntu.

Download install CD. Burn it. Boot from it. Install. "Using GRUB as your bootloader is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED". Okay, use GRUB.

Boot up. Cannot load an OS. Grub error 1.5.

Okay, re-install.

Boot up. Cannot load an OS. Grub error 1.5.

Read your BIOS manual and find the way to make sure that CD is booted before HDD. You could boot from CDROM when you installed Ubuntu first time. CDROM is read only medium. Your installation should not break it. If you get grub errors, you are not booting from CDROM. CDROMs are booted with syslinux and not with grub.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

Actually, that story sounds (ironically) like my attempt to switch to Ubuntu.

Download install CD. Burn it. Boot from it. Install. "Using GRUB as your bootloader is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED". Okay, use GRUB.

No offense, but you either skipped, or left out, the most important step of the entire procedure, which would be "Read the installation instructions.", and should go right before "Download install CD".

It's hardly fair to blame the software when you didn't read the directions.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

This sounds familiar. I remember a post like this before and I checked the actual mailing lists and I remember you being a complete asshole as people tried to help you. You kept hurtling insults at people who were trying their best to help you and eventually they gave up figuring that you were merely trolling them and didn't really have a problem.

MOD parent down.

This guy is a well known troll. Look at the ubuntu forums (other people have provided links) and see what an asshole this guy was to the people trying to help him.

Chances are the guy didn't really have a problem and he is just trolling either for fun or profit.

Re:Want to do business with Microsoft?

Then drop your pants and grab your ankles.

This kind of talk will win you a mod up on Slashdot.

To the small businessman it defines you as an adolescent nincompoop still writing his missives on the men's room wall.

Re:Happy New Year, Microsoft.

Considering that he was trying to run XP as a server OS, something only the truly moronic would consider doing (incredibly, he blames Microsoft for HP's shitty restore CD and Promise's shitty driver CD), I very much doubt this sort of thing will be a shining beacon of hope to anyone.

Not that this has anything to do with Vista or Microsoft, and everything to do with one very silly man doing some very silly things indeed.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

I read through your entire thread on the Ubuntu Forums regarding this problem, and your main problem is that you jumped into the process of installing another totally different OS before taking the correct precautions.

The logical thing to do before installing ANY OS that you aren't familiar with is to read the main parts of the admin guides (or try a LiveCD if one exists), and check the hard drives and installation media your using PRIOR to installing the OS. That's just common sense. You wouldn't drink water out of a pond before you knew it was safe to do so, would you?

You should've also had a backup image of your hard drive prior to the installation, so that you could simply restore it if things went south. Don't whine about being unable to access your data if you didn't care enough about it to create a backup image prior to doing a potentially destructive process as installing an OS. Symantec Ghost is incredibly easy to use, and so are many other free OSS imaging utilities (dd is easy enough for a chimp) available as well. You have no excuse besides your own ignorance, which is commonly typical of users such as yourself.

This all goes down to the phrase, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself."

PS - the reason Windows "worked" on this drive even though it was bad was probably because Windows wasn't installed on that disk, and was being used as just a slave addition. I guarantee you if Windows was running off of that drive (or even it's pagefile), you would've run into some serious issues. Windows (NTFS) is commonly less graceful when it encounters bad sectors/blocks than most Linux filesystems like Ext3 or ReiserFS.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

Ok dude, I read through your posts at the ubuntu forums, all of it. And I agree, most the people there regurgitated the same info over and over, and even asked the same questions that you all ready did answer. BUT the answer to your problem was given, just because it wasn't the answer you wanted, doesn't mean it wasn't correct. Look, you needed some sort of bootable disk to go in and make corrections. It could have been a floppy disk or a cd, it doesn't fucking matter, anything to fix the mbr would have worked. You can go to a god damn library and download it if you have no friends or family's computer to use. You kept saying "if they make something that has the ability to lock you out they need a backup to fix it" (paraphrased) or some such. Well, Windows has similar issues; if you get a stop error, try to boot up into safe mode and still receive the stop error, what do you do? OMFG you get a Windows disc to boot off of!!!! WHO KNEW!!??? Also, you were an extreme dick on the forums, sure, the help wasn't top notch, but neither was your, emo angst filled, responses.

Re:What do you expect?

What's wrong with an old box as a server?

A server is something that... serves. It doesn't necessarily imply a 4U monster with 4 CPUs, 16GB RAM, and 8 drives in RAID. There are plenty tasks for which using any old box works perfectly fine. A print server usually doesn't need anything very fancy.

Mod Parent Up

This article was obviously written by an absolute amateur. There are almost no facts at all in the steaming pile of rhetoric.

Re:Comedy of Ubuntu errors

(This was before they combined them, geniuses.)

In other words, Ubuntu actually thinks about the user's needs in advance and fixes them, while Microsoft (as described in the article) does nothing of the sort.

Re:I smell several errors.

>*Microsoft has a policy where the vendors can't ship you a Windows CD so instead they have to send you a series of restore CDs.
> -Never heard of this happening. I think he means HP restore CDs

HP _is_ the vendor... I think you misunderstood.

>*The #*(&$ers at HP made it so the brain dead restore scripts would not see any hardware other than the parts they shipped, and it would not
>recognise the Promise controller.
> -That's a driver issue. No drivers, no access to weird/different hardware

Looks like you have some common ground:
>Fair enough, it isn't HP's duty to recognise everything, that would be well beyond anything I expected.

>*If you have a copy of XP to use, guess what? The key that comes with the HP box is restricted to the version of Windows on the restore CD.
> - Yes, that's called a OEM key. They also have VLKs and Retail keys. Don't pirate.

Uh huh; and I should add that obviously a pirate wouldn't care about using the key on the COA.

>*That is when I learned half of the problems with Promise, the CD it provides is not bootable and contains nothing resembling a tool.
> -Nothing to do with FOSS/MS. I don't think he does this once a week. If so, this is new hardware and it's new to him. Not MS's problem.

You're getting warmer.

>So this tech can't get Windows to work, installs Ubuntu, and tells the customer "Tada".
>Excuse me!!! We have unneeded licenses,

That's not an issue! Not using licenses bundled at no additional cost doesn't waste anything on the buyer's part.

>an incompetent tech

Why do you think the tech is incompetent? He got the job done. Maybe that was a bit of hyperbole and you really meant "non-expert"? In that case, I will have to agree, but I must warn you that expertise is hard to nail down in an immature industry that pays little attention to training. And I don't mean that just with respect to HR; even the core knowledge of the "expert" is up in the air. My idea of expertise here is knowing to skip using the bundled Windows license entirely. I'd guess that most of the Slashdot crowd agrees with me. But I can't be sure if that's what you had in mind.

>and hours of wasted install time due to the previous mentioned items.

I'm not sure how long it takes you to attempt to boot from a CD, swap a hard drive in and take a look around, and do an Ubuntu install on up-to-date hardware, but if you measure it in hours, well I hope you get paid by the hour. =)

>Fire this guy.

I'm not sure how you fire a contractor for a one time job that is complete...

>Decide if Ubuntu works,

Clearly it will.

>if so, great, get your money back from the licenses,

I urge you to enter the real world. ("Here's your $0, sir.")

>and if not then get a competent tech in there.

If you ask me, the only real mistake the tech made was not making sure to get proper drivers for the RAID controller in advance. They're all easily available online.

Yes, I know there is a way to use the bundled windows install with the RAID hardware: install the RAID driver on the previous Windows install and then image that partition onto the RAID array and swap the volume IDs. But I'm not going to knock the tech for not using it, because it's time consuming and not maintainable (e.g. no way to run the system restore tools from CD, etc.)

Re:Nice Work

First, it had nothing to do with the vendor "seamlessly" supporting new hardware. It had to do with the vendor providing the basics for being able to maintain the system at all - i.e., an OEM install CD for the OS that wasn't crippled (no F6 driver install capability), and no drivers on the RAID cd (from the other vendor).

Second, you're correct - a NAS device would have been better - even an external USB hard drive. However, we don't actually know that the consultant bought the hardware - this could have been supplied by the client on their own initiative and he had to work with what he had. Small business clients do this all the time as any small business consultant knows.

Third, suggesting even SBS for a 4-workstation office is idiotic.

Fourth, the point of the Ubuntu install was to be a file server. They won't be running Windows apps on it, so your last point is irrelevant.

So, no, thank you for playing.