[Elecraft] win 7 32/64 bit ... caution needed...

[John Ragle]

As a long-time Unix and Linux user, I have the following comments...

1. It is indeed possible to have a dual-boot machine running both WIN 
(e.g. WIN 7 or WIN XP) and Linux.

1a. The bootstrap loader ("GRUB") is not easy to remove, and I would 
highly recommend you have a complete bit-image (not just a data-file 
backup!!!) copy of your original, functional, system, including programs 
and OS, before you try to install Linux.

2. Some amateur radio programs (e.g. FLDIGI) have very good versions 
that run under Linux.

3. Some UBUNTU distributions load and run on my particular machines 
(usually I use a Dell XPS 420 running WIN  7 Ultimate (32 bit)), and 
others do not load properly. In particular, the last Ubuntu distribution 
that I was able to load and use successfully ON THIS MACHINE was 
10.04.1. This seems to be somewhat dependent on the machine.

4. Various Red Hat (Fedora, etc) distributions work, but are a tiny bit 
more difficult to install and extend.

5. It is not true that there are no virus issues with Linux. There are 
specific Linux viruses, but since Linux is much less popular than 
Windows, the creeps that write such malware have paid less attention to 
it than to Windows. I speak from the experience of having to rebuild a 
Linux OS that was virus-infected. Vide:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware

6. "Drivers" are still an issue. Ubuntu 10.04.1 would not recognize my 
sound cards on the Dell XPS. This is disastrous for programs that 
utilize a sound card for AFSK, etc. Red Hat's distribution would. Go 
figure.

In the best of all possible worlds, Linux is fine. It is small, very 
reliable, almost virus-free, and when used with a windowing shell, it is 
almost like a Windows OS. The main problem you might encounter is that 
there is a paucity of applications for Linux, for the same reason that 
the malware builders don't spend much time on Linux.

If you try to operate from a console window in Linux, you are faced with 
the same situation as with Unix...the command structure is quite 
different, and there is a bit of a learning curve. The situation is not 
as utopian as is sometimes said. Be prepared, in the worst case, to 
rebuild your Windows from scratch (i.e. from your bit-image backup). It 
is not too hard to get into a situation where a machine won't boot at 
all without some outside help.

John Ragle -- W1ZI

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On 1/5/2011 11:16 AM, Paul at N4LCD.com wrote:
> This has also been my experience. The ubuntu Dual Boot installation works great.
> Or you can run ubuntu off a CD. No anti virus needed for ubuntu. You can get used to ubuntu but still have Windows...
Ron, WB1HGA also wrote
>> Bob,
>>
>> if you are that concerned about windose, why not look into Linux. Both
>> 32 and 64 bit. The Linux system comes in different flavors with more popular ones being Ubuntu, LinuxMint, Fedora.
>>
>> You then install Linux side by side with windose. This is called duo
>> boot. You chose which os you want to use.

>> The best part of Linux is, it's more secure! No viruses to worry about
>> like in windose!