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I went to Circuit City to look at laptops. All come with Vista. When I
mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux, he said that
there is no way to install Linux on a Vista machine. Something about the
file system, NFFS. I then said that I would partition and format the disk
anyway so the Vista file system shouldn't matter. He said it does
anyway, and furthermore that any live CD would not recognize the hard
drive or, indeed, any of the hardware, which is Vista-specific somehow.
He said one could not even install XP on a Vista machine. Finally, any
fooling with the disk would render the "recovery" CDs (DVDs?) unbootable.
Does this make sense? Anybody dual-booting with Vista? Are drivers
available?

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:51:41 -0500, edju wrote:

> I went to Circuit City to look at laptops. All come with Vista. When I
> mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux, he said
> that there is no way to install Linux on a Vista machine. Something
> about the file system, NFFS. I then said that I would partition and

That's NTFS - Linux can read and write to NTFS partitions. It is also
quite possible to reformat and do away with it.

> format the disk anyway so the Vista file system shouldn't matter. He
> said it does anyway, and furthermore that any live CD would not
> recognize the hard drive or, indeed, any of the hardware, which is
> Vista-specific somehow. He said one could not even install XP on a Vista
> machine. Finally, any fooling with the disk would render the
> "recovery" CDs (DVDs?) unbootable. Does this make sense? Anybody
> dual-booting with Vista? Are drivers available?

There are indeed hundreds of folks dual booting xp and vista - having
installed xp on their brand new vista machines - simply check
microsoft.public.windows.vista for information.

No it does not make any sense. Of course there are drivers available. BUT
- why pay for something you don't intend to use? There are plenty of
machines being sold without microsoft. DELL has several models as does
WalMart, and Sears is in the process.

edju wrote:
> I went to Circuit City to look at laptops. All come with Vista. When I
> mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux, he said that
> there is no way to install Linux on a Vista machine. Something about the
> file system, NFFS. I then said that I would partition and format the disk
> anyway so the Vista file system shouldn't matter. He said it does
> anyway, and furthermore that any live CD would not recognize the hard
> drive or, indeed, any of the hardware, which is Vista-specific somehow.
> He said one could not even install XP on a Vista machine. Finally, any
> fooling with the disk would render the "recovery" CDs (DVDs?) unbootable.
> Does this make sense? Anybody dual-booting with Vista? Are drivers
> available?


Nothing you report as his statements makes sense.

Circuit City employees are, as you stated, salesmen. They are somewhat
lower down the food chain than salesmen at Best Buy.

Never believe what a salesman tells you. Always check the Internet, then
believe about half of what you read.

You can't find a computer preloaded with GNU/Linux or anything other
than Windows at either store. Period.

If you don't want to financially support Micro$lut, then buy a laptop
from Dell with Ubuntu preloaded. You can then install a different distro
if you choose, safely knowing you did not support a corporation which
continually tries to destroy freedom.

Other stores also carry non-Micro$lut PCs, such as MicroCenter and
Wal-Mart, and most any "mom and pop" computer store.

If you don't really need a laptop, then you can build your own
desktop/tower PC, with whatever options you choose, and put whatever OS
on it that you choose.

Notice my frequent reference to "choose," which you lose with Micro$lut.

--
John

No Microsoft, Apple, Intel nor Ford products were used in the preparation or transmission of this message.

The EULA sounds like it was written by a team of lawyers who want to tell me what I can't do. The GPL sounds like it was written by a human being, who wants me to know what I can do.

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:51:41 -0500, edju wrote:

> I went to Circuit City to look at laptops.

That was your first mistake.

> When I mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux,

And that was your second mistake. Never talk to a saleman at CC. And never
mention Linux within earshot of their employees. One of their salesmen
once told me that installing Linux would void the warranty of any machine
that it was intsalled on.

In my experience, Circuit City and intelligence are mutually exclusive.
The sales staff know almost nothing about the products in their own store.
All they know is that anything that says Microsoft on the box is the best
thing to use and anything else will destroy your computer.

In <pan.2008.01.25.15.08.31.754319@localhost.localdom ain> NoBody:

[Snip...]

> my experience, Circuit City and intelligence are mutually exclusive

This has been my experience, too, with their electronics salesdroids. CC
has apparently considered "saving" money this way to be OK, years now.

(Obviously, nobody "managing" at CC ever shopped in an Apple outlet)

> sales staff know almost nothing about the products in their own store

I walked out of one CC abruptly (many) years ago after a "manager" tried
to lecture me about winmodem superiority. His argument? It said so right
there on the box. Manufacturers wouldn't lie on their shrinkwrap...

Inside and out, CC is getting a reputation for senseless stupidity:

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com...ves/10710.html

Anyone with Vista based on CC "advice" alone needs a competency hearing.

--
Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS *
Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots.
Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT.
Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.

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edju wrote:
> I went to Circuit City to look at laptops. All come with Vista.
> When I mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux,
> he said that there is no way to install Linux on a Vista machine.
> Something about the file system, NFFS. I then said that I would
> partition and format the disk anyway so the Vista file system
> shouldn't matter. He said it does anyway, and furthermore that any
> live CD would not recognize the hard drive or, indeed, any of the
> hardware, which is Vista-specific somehow. He said one could not even
> install XP on a Vista machine. Finally, any fooling with the disk
> would render the "recovery" CDs (DVDs?) unbootable. Does this make
> sense? Anybody dual-booting with Vista? Are drivers available?

Hi,

What you can be absolutely certain of is NOT to buy a laptop from that man!

You are likely to have no problems dual-booting Vista and Linux,
providing you install Vista first ;the other way round is problematic
for Vista. If you delete the Vista partition during installation of
linux then you don't have to worry as it will definitely work.

Some further points, recovery CD's that don't recover in all situations
even with the original hardware installed sound a bit crap to me.

I have a machine with Vista Home Premium OEM on and had a lot of trouble
getting hold of an installation disc to do a clean install with, despite
the fact that I have a licence key and it's all above board; I couldn't
even download a torrent of a legitimate disc as all the ones online have
been cracked in terms of activation, which I wasn't interested in.

I wanted a proper installation disc and in the end bought one directly
from Microsoft for just £3.25 packing and posting. It turns out that
the disc Microsoft label 'Windows Anytime Upgrade' can clean install any
of the Vista flavours from the bottom basic to Ultimate. If you don't
have your OEM key to hand it will still install the flavour of your
choice and give you 30 days to enter and activate it. It's happily
activated my OEM key now.

My point is that I would just get your OEM key for Vista stored in a
safe place (usually on the bottom of the laptop) and get hold of a
'Windows Anytime Upgrade' disc directly from Microsoft so you have at
least the opportunity of a clean reinstall at a later date. I would
then just install my favourite linux distro while wiping Vista in the
process. At least this way you can always clean install your way back
to Vista if you feel like you're missing out on too many blue screens.

It always amuses me the most to walk past BT phone boxes and see blue
screens.

- --
Regards,
Sheridan Hutchinson
Sheridan@Shezza.org
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edju wrote:
> I went to Circuit City to look at laptops. All come with Vista. When I
> mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux, he said that
> there is no way to install Linux on a Vista machine. Something about the
> file system, NFFS. I then said that I would partition and format the disk
> anyway so the Vista file system shouldn't matter. He said it does
> anyway, and furthermore that any live CD would not recognize the hard
> drive or, indeed, any of the hardware, which is Vista-specific somehow.
> He said one could not even install XP on a Vista machine. Finally, any
> fooling with the disk would render the "recovery" CDs (DVDs?) unbootable.
> Does this make sense? Anybody dual-booting with Vista? Are drivers
> available?

I do dualbooting with Debian and Vista on my Notebook and can't agree on
any of this problems except - to some extend - with the recovery-CDs.
Vista seems to have trouble booting on a Machine with an damaged
NTFS-Partition (damaged mine by shrinking the partition via gparted, low
level formating helps here).

Christoph


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On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:49:48 +0000, Sheridan Hutchinson wrote:

>
> Some further points, recovery CD's that don't recover in all situations
> even with the original hardware installed sound a bit crap to me.
>
>
This reminds me of a Time computer I bought - they wanted £60 for a
recovery disc and didn't like it when I visited our local trading
standards office. I used linux on the whole hard disc in the end.

--
Neil
reverse ra and delete l
Linux user 335851

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Christoph Egger wrote:
> Vista seems to have trouble booting on a Machine with an damaged
> NTFS-Partition (damaged mine by shrinking the partition via gparted,
> low level formating helps here).

I had a similar problem. It appears that Vista is highly sensitive to
being moved off the disk that it was originally installed to, and is
also at least moderately sensitive to having its partition structure
changed.

The solution is to 'generalise' the Vista bootloader so that it will
work on any disk or partition and will not look to see if it is original
or not. This essentially makes it behave much like XP in this regard.
The only real use of Microsoft's decision to place these kind of checks
in the boot process is merely to discourage casual copying, as far as I
can determine. As no one in their right mind would counterfeit Vista in
this fashion, it merely serves as an incredible annoyance to genuine users.

If you need help 'generalise' your Vista bootloader then
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/cloning.html provides an excellent guide
to doing so; I certainly wouldn't resize a Vista partition unless it had
been generalised, you will probably get an immediate blue screen on boot
(like I did) that will only go away once you've generalised the loader.
It's very easy to do from within the installation of Vista you are
planning on resizing/moving, but it's a pain (but I found it achievable)
to do after it's been copied and not booting.

- --
Regards,
Sheridan Hutchinson
Sheridan@Shezza.org
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edju wrote:
> I went to Circuit City to look at laptops. All come with Vista. When I
> mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux, he said that
> there is no way to install Linux on a Vista machine. Something about the
> file system, NFFS. I then said that I would partition and format the disk
> anyway so the Vista file system shouldn't matter. He said it does
> anyway, and furthermore that any live CD would not recognize the hard
> drive or, indeed, any of the hardware, which is Vista-specific somehow.
> He said one could not even install XP on a Vista machine. Finally, any
> fooling with the disk would render the "recovery" CDs (DVDs?) unbootable.
> Does this make sense? Anybody dual-booting with Vista? Are drivers
> available?

I have a slightly different experience. I added Vista to an XP OEM
laptop which also had a Linux distribution. I cloned the original hard
drive with XP and Sid, which was too small, onto a larger drive and then
added Vista.

The Vista boot manager is completely different from the NT/2K/XP series,
and quite powerful. It took over the boot sector and listed XP as a
'legacy operating system', but at least I had dual boot. Restoring Grub
and tweaking it a bit (I think) gave me Sid back as well.

Vista uses NTFS, but (inevitably) not quite the same NTFS as XP.

Recovery CDs will restore the original partitioning of the drive, so
they are of no use once it's been changed. If you ever need it, clone
off the Linux system, use the recovery CD and then follow again whatever
steps you took to alter the partitioning. I actually had a legal Vista
installation CD at the time, so I wasn't bothered.