I don't know if this is more a question, or an invitation to discussion.
A neighbor gave me a slightly older computer, and IBM type with pentium 4 and Windows XP Pro (legally) installed (whoo hoo!) I was looking for a second system that would run more modern scanning software. And maybe Linux.
It was ready for the landfill.. but apparently the previous owner tried to save it. What I found inside: a gig of memory, and 500 Gig SATA drive. The original was an IDE.. the cord for it was still intact (minus hard drive).
And bad capacitors inside. I assume with the attempt to recover the machine, the owner found anomalies during the boot process, and "hiccups" at various inopportune times. So I broke out the soldering apparatus, and replaced the capacitors.
The machine was then stable, after letting it run for several days.
So for the dual boot idea: I didn't want to mess with the partitions on the SATA drive, so,
I installed an 80 gig IDE drive, using the cable that was left in the machine, disabled the SATA drive in CMOS and then booted up with Ubuntu CD and installed it on the IDE drive.
Now to boot from Linux or XP, all I have to do is disable the one drive in setup and enable the other one right after hitting the power button..
and one system cannot "mess with" the other.
I used to have a dual boot with Linux and XP. I hardly ever booted into Windows so I took it off.
Instead I installed "Wine" which is a Linux program that allows many, many windows programs to run under Linux. I only use a few programs from Windows, theWord, a scanner radio program, and some network tools. They all run seamlessly under Linux. You can't tell the difference between those and any other Linux program. You can click on a Windows .exe file and it runs just like it was on a Windows machine. It's pretty neat.
As far as the Windows Office programs go, I use OpenOffice which I'm sure is on your Ubuntu distro. Never had any compatibility issues. I send out a lot of documents, spreadsheets, etc to people with Windows and they've never had a problem. The day I realized I didn't need Windows at all was a good day. I hate Windows!
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rrobs
I used to have a dual boot with Linux and XP. I hardly ever booted into Windows so I took it off.
Instead I installed "Wine" which is a Linux program that allows many, many windows programs to run under Linux. I only use a few programs from Windows, theWord, a scanner radio program, and some network tools. They all run seamlessly under Linux. You can't tell the difference between those and any other Linux program. You can click on a Windows .exe file and it runs just like it was on a Windows machine. It's pretty neat.
As far as the Windows Office programs go, I use OpenOffice which I'm sure is on your Ubuntu distro. Never had any compatibility issues. I send out a lot of documents, spreadsheets, etc to people with Windows and they've never had a problem. The day I realized I didn't need Windows at all was a good day. I hate Windows!
Enjoy your new machine...Rich
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Taxidev
Ham's post is from 2013. I don't think it can be considered new.
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