I Was Forced To Install Windows 10

[Mock Turtle]

I don't know about any others but I have found a piece of software such as Macrium Reflect, like similar software, and a free edition is available, is a better solution for recovery than most others, since it replaces almost all possible infections of malware back to some saved state. I've used it many times to save my skin but not from malware - usually software problems or corruptions.

 

[Trailblazer]

I assume anything off Craigslist is not new? I must admit I would be a bit cautious in doing this and I was referring to companies that were still selling new PCs. I have bought used PCs from shops though - where one can readily complain if anything is amiss (and sometimes has been).

Everything on Craigslist is used if a person is selling it themselves, but I have never had a problem with any computer I purchased. I always check it out at the home to be sure it works right. I guess there is always a chance something could go wrong, but I never spend much money so I am willing to take the chance.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Everything on Craigslist is used if a person is selling it themselves, but I have never had a problem with any computer I purchased. I always check it out at the home to be sure it works right. I guess there is always a chance something could go wrong, but I never spend much money so I am willing to take the chance.

For myself, it is more about not knowing to what use it was put before. Shops I suspect will wipe hard disks and reinstall an operating system so that anything before is completely gone. This might not be so for an individual selling something, where they might have just deleted stuff, since doing so doesn't actually get rid of it but merely marks it as deleted. Much of this can be recovered, and some might be rather nasty (and illegal).

 

[Trailblazer]

For myself, it is more about not knowing to what use it was put before. Shops I suspect will wipe hard disks and reinstall an operating system so that anything before is completely gone. This might not be so for an individual selling something, where they might have just deleted stuff, since doing so doesn't actually get rid of it but merely marks it as deleted. Much of this can be recovered, and some might be rather nasty (and illegal).

I like purchasing computers off Craigslist because they don't wipe everything off. They leave me with lots of good programs.

One computer I purchased was from a Chinese guy and there was a lot of stuff in Chinese that he had not deleted, but he was a family man so there was nothing nasty... Coincidentally, when we showed up at his house to buy the computer, we discovered he was a guy that worked in my husband's state agency, an economist, and he worked in my husband's section.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Adventures of a Linux newbie:

Trying to put Solus on my machine, corrupted my USB stick and the computer - erased MBR, irretrivable. Big problem Mint would not load. Could have directed it to sda1, but my keyboard slash does not function (will get a new keyboard. Presently, I copy the characters that do not work in keyboard from a file that I have prepared for it). So, loaded Sparky Linux. Al-Hamdulillah (Praise Allah), it worked. Then loaded Mint again. That too is working. So, now, another attempt to load Fedora and Solus on my computer. This time, I will use VirtualBox as suggested by dybmh, and hope I will succeed. Bur there are two Virtual Boxes, one by Oracle (89 MB) and the other Open Source Portble Virtul Box (1.8 MB). So, I will try the latter first.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I like purchasing computers off Craigslist because they don't wipe everything off. They leave me with lots of good programs.

One computer I purchased was from a Chinese guy and there was a lot of stuff in Chinese that he had not deleted, but he was a family man so there was nothing nasty... Coincidentally, when we showed up at his house to buy the computer, we discovered he was a guy that worked in my husband's state agency, an economist, and he worked in my husband's section.

True, there is always that. My first copy of Photoshop came via a used computer (but not legal). Later I got a scanner and got a legal copy - very useful too. And I've also had other good software that I would probably not have bought but would use. I tend to use the free WPS Office in place of some MS stuff but it is annoying in the frequency of updates or new versions.

 

[Trailblazer]

True, there is always that. My first copy of Photoshop came via a used computer (but not legal). Later I got a scanner and got a legal copy - very useful too. And I've also had other good software that I would probably not have bought but would use. I tend to use the free WPS Office in place of some MS stuff but it is annoying in the frequency of updates or new versions.

I think we got our first computer circa 1992. I had been in school for a little while and my husband had been typing my papers on an electric typewriter after I wrote them out on paper. I cannot even remember the OS or software it had and of course there were no windows. Later we had WinME and WinXP on other computers we got off Craigslist, then I bought a new laptop that had Vista but I never used it till the computer tech installed Win7 over it.

 

[dybmh]

Adventures of a Linux newbie:

Trying to put Solus on my machine, corrupted my USB stick and the computer - erased MBR, irretrivable. Big problem Mint would not load. Could have directed it to sda1, but my keyboard slash does not function (will get a new keyboard. Presently, I copy the characters that do not work in keyboard from a file that I have prepared for it). So, loaded Sparky Linux. Al-Hamdulillah (Praise Allah), it worked. Then loaded Mint again. That too is working. So, now, another attempt to load Fedora and Solus on my computer. This time, I will use VirtualBox as suggested by dybmh, and hope I will succeed. Bur there are two Virtual Boxes, one by Oracle (89 MB) and the other Open Source Portble Virtul Box (1.8 MB). So, I will try the latter first.

Well... That sounds like something that would happen to me. Partitioning the drives manually can be tricky to say the least. One little trick is: I use a Live distro from a usb then wipe the drive(s) using the dd command. But I won't give you the full command here because if misused all your data could be wiped in error... However, if you want, send me a PM and I'll give you the full command I use to completely wipe all partitions and start from scratch. That's what I do when setting up a complicated partitioning scheme. I always wipe the partitions with dd and then manually setup the partitions from scratch. I do this every time. But most people don't.

Question: How powerful is your machine?

And here's the recipe I use:

Start with some debian based distro ( Mint should work )
then go straight to terminal
sudo -i
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
shutdown -r now
after reboot, go back to terminal
sudo -i
apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
apt-get install build-essential
apt-get install dkms
apt-get install virtualbox
download the extension pack ( link )
add the extension pack from the VirtualBox GUI ( it's under file > preferences > extensions )

that should be it. after that you can start making virtual machines and you should have full functionality including USB support.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Got the box and the extension. VM is creating a machine for the last half an hour. Dont know when it will get it done.

 

[dybmh]

Got the box and the extension. VM is creating a machine for the last half an hour. Dont know when it will get it done.

Yup, you chose a fixed size HDD? ... that's smart. The performance is better that way.

As long as you have plenty of memory installed you can have a lot of fun with this. The snapshot feature is great. Go ahead and hit those virtual machines with a virtual sledge hammer, and then revert back to the most recent snapshot. ... go nuts...

 

[dybmh]

@Aupmanyav ,

another handy trick... X11 forwarding via ssh for secure remote access with a GUI... it's super useful for times when a terminal simply won't get the job done and you're away from your machine.

if you ever need help with that ( or anything linux-ish ) please feel free to drop me a message or something. Community/Volunteer based support is the life blood of Linux .

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yup, you chose a fixed size HDD? ... that's smart. The performance is better that way.

As long as you have plenty of memory installed you can have a lot of fun with this. The snapshot feature is great. Go ahead and hit those virtual machines with a virtual sledge hammer, and then revert back to the most recent snapshot. ... go nuts...

I think I chose the dynamic HDD. It is still at 0%. I dont go nuts easily. Do you think it will create any problem if I stop the process and start at it again, this time with fixed size.

This kernel requires an x86-64 CPU, but only detected an i686 CPU.
But my machine is x86-64 i3, and I am running x86-64 distributions.
Moreover, the machine lists all programs as 32 - Ubuntu 32.

 

[dybmh]

I think I chose the dynamic HDD. It is still at 0%. I dont go nuts easily. Do you think it will create any problem if I stop the process and start at it again, this time with fixed size.

Yes, I would cancel. Is it safe? Yes probably, but, the dynamic disk should have created instantly... And that makes me a little nervous about the overall system health of the machine you're working with.

At this point if it were me, I would cancel, then reboot, then go back to terminal, use the VboxManage command to create the Vdisk, I'd do this with sudo -i ( or even better as root ) so that any debug messages are visible. I'd also be looking at the output of fdisk -l, top, free, and df -h just to be sure the machine is operating as expected.

This kernel requires an x86-64 CPU, but only detected an i686 CPU.
But my machine is x86-64 i3, and I am running x86-64 distributions.
Moreover, the machine lists all programs as 32 - Ubuntu 32.

Ok. This could be a problem. If u used apt-get or synaptic I think that the dependencies will default to 64.. there's a workaround, of course, but if this important, and u want stability, I would never use 32 bit. The apt repos haven't supported those in 2 years, I think.

 

[dybmh]

@Aupmanyav ,

A few notes on creatind the Vdisk from terminal:

Pay attention to where the Vdisk is created in the file system.
If created as root, chown the Vdisk file before trying to associate it with any virtual machines...

ETA: it's probably good to check your group membership. Your user needs to be in the vboxuser group. to check: from a terminal: id $(whoami)

 

[Aupmanyav]

Ok. This could be a problem. If u used apt-get or synaptic I think that the dependencies will default to 64.. there's a workaround, of course, but if this important, and u want stability, I would never use 32 bit. The apt repos haven't supported those in 2 years, I think.

I too, would never use 32 bit. So, I downloaded the latest. Let me try again.
But, but, the 6.1 deb package does not load on my Mint 19.3! But, then, what is life without problems!
A life without problems has not been lived.
.
Tried with the latest Lubuntu 19.04. Still the 32 bit problem.
How do we put the Solus file in a newly created partition for the VirtualBox to pick up. How do I tell the OS that I am the owner of the partition .. chown, etc.
.

 

[stvdv]

I am not going to until I have to.

They only just upgraded from Win7 to Win10 at the state government agency where I work a couple of weeks ago, and Win10 is not all that different. I was worried, but was not that difficult to navigate. I do the same things over and over and it took hardly any time to figure it out. However, I have Win7 running on my three home computers and I plan to keep it as long as I can.

I upgraded from XP to W7 last year or so

I think for the next few years I'll be fine.

Windows 7 is great. My laptop came with Windows 10, but I put on W7; I like it so much better. At least I am not spied upon by microsoft as much as with W10.

What they accuse Huawei of they do themselves I think.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Dybmh, I think I am getting at it. I do not need the latest Lubuntu or Ubantu I need 16.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Dybmh, I think I am getting at it. I do not need the latest Ubuntu or Lubuntu but their 16.4 version. My computer is not enough for 64 bit, so I will have to be satisfied with 32 bits. My bios is old. I have not upgraded it fearing problems. If I upgrade it, then there is a possibility of having 64 bits. So, I will install Lubuntu 16.4 and the VirtualBox version 6. With that, I might be able to run Solus.

 

[dybmh]

Dybmh, I think I am getting at it. I do not need the latest Ubuntu or Lubuntu but their 16.4 version. My computer is not enough for 64 bit, so I will have to be satisfied with 32 bits. My bios is old. I have not upgraded it fearing problems. If I upgrade it, then there is a possibility of having 64 bits. So, I will install Lubuntu 16.4 and the VirtualBox version 6. With that, I might be able to run Solus.

Hmmm.....

I'm not sure that you will be able to run Solus as a Virtual Machine on a 32bit Host OS ( Lubuntu ). Solus is 64bit.

Usually the CPU is what determines if 64bit OS is supported. And I am guessing that this is the issue, not the BIOS.

hyperlink >>> Does VirtualBox run 64-bit guests on a 32-bit host?

---------------------------------------------------------

However.... note that this question above was answered in 2014. I am not sure that 'apt-get install' will be able to locate all the 32bit dependencies it needs while install virtualbox. There is a workaround for this. Let me know if apt-get produces errors while installing?

 

[dybmh]

@Aupmanyav ,

I'm going to try this on my end to see what happens

Lubuntu 32bit as the host, then I'll try to install virtualbox... then solus as a guest...just for fun.