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Experimental Android Live CD Now Available to x86 Systems

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:30:14 -0500

T-Mobile G1 owners already have an idea what to expect from Google's Android operating system, but now anyone can give the OS a whirl, and they can do it on their PC. No convoluted hacks required - just download the Live CD image, burn it to disc, and reboot your PC.

The hacked OS comes courtesy of the Beijing-based LiveAndroid team, who released its first LiveAndroid alpha build in May. Now in version 0.2, the new release is based on Android Cupcake (version 1.5) and adds some useful functionality, like a mouse-controlled curser, keyboard support, and Ethernet. Still missing are WiFi, Bluetooth, and audio.

"LiveAndroid gives you a taste of Google phone on your computer. We want LiveAndroid to be a REAL OS for your computer. Now it is only a toy," the developers wrote on their website.

LiveAndroid Home
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Image Credit: LiveAndroid

How To: Repartition Your Hard Drive For Free Without Formatting or Losing Data

Justin Kerr — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:00:00 -0500

Partitioning your hard drive has never been easier. Free options, including the Windows install disk, make this once monumental task a fairly simple two-click experience that many of us don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about when we first install our OS’s. It can sometimes be difficult to anticipate your storage needs up front, and many users just assume they are stuck with decisions they made long ago.

A typical user could have many reasons for breaking up a hard drive into multiple volumes, but partitioning your drive after installing an OS is typically a destructive proposition -- one that usually involves backing up your data, formatting, and starting clean. Commercial solutions such as Norton Partition Magic has existed for years and allows you to preserve your data while resizing volumes, but what if you’re working on a limited budget (or completely without one)? That’s where GParted comes into play. This free and open source disk partitioning tool was designed for Linux, but luckily for us Windows users, it comes bundled in a live CD or USB version called Parted Magic which takes care of the Linux requirement.

In this guide we will look at how to use the interface to resize, delete, or create new partitions, all without losing your data or starting over. This will come in handy if you made your Windows partition too large or too small, or if you’re happy with Windows XP, but want to give Vista a spin. Backups are still heavily advised, but with our help, and a bit of luck, you won’t need them. Read on!

What you'll Need:

    * A PC With At Least 1 Disk Drive and 300 Megs Of RAM
    * A Backup of Your Data (Just a Precaution!)
    * 30 Minutes For Each 100 GB of Hard Drive Space Resized (Estimate)

AND

Parted Magic CD ISO

Free, Mirror #1 , Mirror #2, Mirror #3

ISO Burning Software
Free, InfraRecorder

Parted Magic USB

Free, Mirror #1 , Mirror #2, Mirror #3

1. Use Your ISO Burning Software to Create a Bootable CD or USB Thumb Drive

To begin, we must convert our newly acquired iso file to a bootable CD. You can use either your existing CD burning software, or a free alternative such as InfraRecorder. Once this is completed the CD should be moved to the bootable optical drive on your PC. For the USB drive version simply unpack and copy the files over to your USB thumb drive. Make sure you have a backup of your important data and restart your machine.

Having trouble getting your system to boot from the CD/DVD or USB drive? Read below. Otherwise, skip to step 2.

Some computers are not set up to boot from the CD/DVD drive or USB. If your system fails to boot into the Parted Magic options menu (shown below) then there may be a few configuration issues you will need to review. You either need to invoke the boot selection menu (the F-key to access this should be shown at the top or bottom of your screen immediately after power up). A trip to the BIOS will otherwise be required to make a permanent change. Once you enter the BIOS, look for an option called “boot order”. In most cases you use the + or – key to advance the device of your choice up or down the priority list. Upon completion of the boot order change, make your way over to save option and reboot.

2. Boot Into Parted Magic

Select option #1 – Default settings (Runs from RAM / Ejects CD). After selecting this option, you will see the OS copy itself into your system memory and boot into the front end interface. Once it has fully finished booting, the CD tray will eject the disk and is now fully operating from RAM.

3. Use The Built in Partition Imager to Backup Your Files (Optional)

Click the Icon of the wrench and hammer and select Image Partition

The default Partition Imager interface is a bit clunky if you're accustomed to a sleek GUI. If you own an alternative solution such as one of the free suites offered by most hard drive manufacturers, feel free to use that instead. To navigate through the interface, use the arrow keys to select different options and the TAB key to move between fields. This will allow you to create a sector by sector clone of your volumes just in case something goes wrong with the partition. Keep in mind that you’ll want to save the images to a hard drive that you aren’t resizing. A USB hard drive does the trick quite nicely if you have one that's big enough. We prefer this method because we can backup my data and physically unplug the device, thereby removing it from harm’s way.

4. Launch GParted Partition Editor

Down in the lower tray you will find the various operating system functions, the one we are interested in is the GParted Partition Editor (circled in the image above). We now need to take a close look at our partition and what we can and cannot do, as well as what we should and should not do.

5.) How to Use the GParted Interface and Understand Your Drive Configuration

It’s important to understand your limitations when it comes to partitioning an active drive, especially one that contains a bootable OS. We will use examples in the above screenshot to explain these limitations. This screenshot represents an extreme scenario, a drive with 3 preexisting partitions, and two active operating systems. Before we go any further we need to understand what each section means.

1.) Hard Drive Selection - This is the Hard Drive currently selected for partitioning, which in this case is a 150 GB Western Digital Raptor. To Change to a different drive simply use the pull down menu and select the appropriate device (these can even be USB).

2.) Partition #1 - This block represents the first preexisting partition which carries the designation /dev/sda1. By looking at the table below (Item #5) we can see the file system is NTFS, the label is Windows XP, and the used/unused space. The Windows XP label was set by me when the drive was formatted. If you have not assigned these labels you will need to figure out based on the size, what each preexisting partition is. Notice the small grey block beside this partition? Grey blocks represent unpartitioned space, it cannot be used by an OS until it is properly partitioned and formatted into a volume.

3.) Partition #2 - This block represents the middle preexisting partition which carries the designation /dev/sda2. By looking at the table below (Item #5) we can see all features of this block including the label Windows Vista. It is important to note that this partition follows /dev/sda1. The importance of this will be clear by the time we finish this section.

4.) Partition #3 - This final preexisting partition carries the designation /dev/sda3 and represents the trailing sectors on the hard drive.

5.) Partition Information – This is where you will see the details of your partitions, review this information carefully to help you identify what is on each.

Lets look at bit more closely at the different scenarios you may encounter based on the above configuration. If you only have one partition on your hard drive (represented by a solid block), your task is a simple one. You will simply be breaking off a chunk from the end of your main partition and formatting it with a file system. It’s simple, and carries minimal risk. But if you have multiple partitions, with two or more bootable OS’s (such as the above scenario), the recommendations below are targeted at you.

What If I want to resize the first block /dev/sda1? – (Label: Windows XP)

When dealing with bootable partitions we will always want to protect the front sectors when resizing whenever possible. In the above scenario the first two blocks /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 represent operating system partitions, Windows XP, and Vista respectively. The third partition /dev/sda3 is a mostly empty swap volume for both operating systems. If I want to add space to the first partition it will need to come from the unallocated grey block directly to the right of it (which in this case is only 5 MB), or from the beginning of /dev/sda2 (Windows Vista). Sectors cannot be taken from /dev/sda3 (OS Shared) because it would not be contiguous.

What If I want to resize the second block /dev/sda2? – (Label = Windows Vista)

Sectors removed from the front of this partition can be added to /dev/sda1 and sectors removed from the back can be added to /dev/sda3. In either scenario, the space could also be use used to form a new partition. If we wish to add space to this partition we will first need to free up sectors from either of the other two volumes.

What if I want to resize the third block /dev/sda3? – (Label = OS Shared)

If we remove sectors from this partition, they can either be added to /dev/sda2 (Windows Vista) or formatted into a new separate partition. They cannot be added to /dev/sda1 since partitions need to be contiguous. If we wanted to add to this partition, the space could only come from /dev/sda2 (Windows Vista).

6. Resize Your Partition

At this point we assume you have studied step 4 and understand the limitations of working with an active drive and can clearly define where you will take the space from, and what you will do with it. To resize your partition simply double click on the appropriate partition and manipulate the various options.

Free Space Preceding – Take sectors from the beginning of the partition which can be attached to any partition directly to the left of it, or formatted into its own volume.

New Size – Space remaining on the partition once all other fields are manipulated. You can enter a number in here if you know exactly how much space you wish to have remaining.

Free Space Following – Take sectors from the end of the partition which can be attached to any partition directly to the right of it, or formatted into it’s own volume.

Create As: - This is only seen if you are creating a new partition using unallocated space. Select Primary Partition if you plan on having fewer than 4 partitions on this particular drive, or if you plan on installing an operating system on it.

Filesystem: - If you’re a Windows user you’ll likely want to choose NTFS. If the drive will be used for Linux instead choose either EX2 or EX3. If you pick the wrong one don’t panic you can always format it with a different file system later on.

Lets assume I want to delete the third partition /dev/sda3 (OS Shared) and add these sectors to /dev/sda2 (Windows Vista). Highlight the partition and click the delete icon at the top. The screen shots below shows the transition.

/dev/sda3 (OS Shared) is now represented as grey unallocated space that can be added to /dev/sda2 or broken into multiple additional partitions. From here I double click the /dev/sda2 partition and increase the size to use up the unallocated space.

/dev/sda2 (Windows Vista) size has now increased from 68.35 GB to 109.74 GB.

Once you are satisfied with the changes click apply (Circled Above) and kick back while GParted moves your data out of harm’s way and resizes the partitions to the new configuration. Note that absolutely nothing happens until you click apply. If you cancel out using the X in the top right, the changes are abandoned and you are back where you started. Additionally, make sure you pay your hydro bill in advance and use a UPS if possible. A power outage during this procedure can cause all sorts of problems that you may, or may not be able to fix without starting over and reinstalling Windows. We hope you took our earlier advice and made a backup!

7. Repair Operating System Partitions That Will Not Boot (Hopefully Optional)

It is very common for Windows to report a problem on boot up after resizing the partition it is installed on. In most cases it will run a check disk and inform you all is well. But what if you OS won’t boot at all? This happens most often when you remove sectors from the front of your bootable partition. Common errors are typically related to boot.ini. The quickest, and easiest way to solve this problem is to pop in your Windows CD and follow the repair this computer option. During my testing, we weren’t able to cause any boot issues that the Windows repair tool couldn’t solve.

How-To: Install Linux Risk Free, With No Formatting or Repartitioning Required

Justin Kerr — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:00:00 -0500

Welcome, Digg users! If you're new to our site, you might also be interested in our Ultimate Geek Photo Gallery, featuring 400 Cosplay photos from Comic-Con 2008

Linux, for those who don’t already know, is a free and open source operating system, which you can find in dozens of different versions (known as distributions). The distribution you pick depends very much on your how you plan on using the OS, but for the purpose of this article we are going to assume you are looking for a desktop alternative to Windows. And as a full-featured Windows replacement, no other Linux distribution comes close to Ubuntu, which features a full suite of pre-loaded desktop applications and an easy to use installer. Fresh installs of Ubuntu will contain recent versions of the most popular open source applications including Open Office, Firefox 3, Gimp Image Editor, and several other multimedia tools and games.

The most recent release version of Ubuntu is 8.04.1 LTS (Long Term Support). This distribution is often referred to as “Hardy Heron” and went live in April 2008. It will remain current until the next iteration, billed “Intrepid Ibex”, launches in October. For reference, our previous Ubuntu install guide featured version 7.10, also known as Gusty Gibbon.

Ubuntu contains many unique and innovative qualities designed to make it less intimidating the average Windows user who may be looking for a change. One of these features is called Live CD. Once you have downloaded and burned a copy of the Live CD ISO, you will have the ability to launch a fully functional copy of the Ubuntu to test out driver compatibility and to sample the user interface, all without installing a single file to your PC. This guide will walk you through testing your hardware and installing a dual boot setup all without formatting or repartitioning your hard drive.

What you'll Need:

A PC Running Windows XP or Vista
A Backup of Your Data (Just a Precaution!)
45 Minutes

AND

Ubuntu Live CD ISO
Free, Direct or Bit Torrent
ISO Burning Software
Free, InfraRecorder

1. Use Your ISO Burning Software To Create A Live CD

To begin we must mount our newly acquired ISO file to a bootable CD. You can use either your existing CD burning software, or since we are in an open source frame of mind, a free alternative such as InfraRecorder. Once this is completed the CD should be moved to the bootable optical drive on your PC. We are now ready to restart our machine and begin the trial.

2. Try Ubuntu Without Any Change to Your Computer

As mentioned before, one of Ubuntu’s finest features is the ability to run the OS off the CD before you commit any additional time to an installation. Running the software “live” is made possible without permanent installation by placing all the necessary files into RAM instead of your hard disk. Incompatibilities are rare, but not even Microsoft has the ability to predict every system configuration. The odds are pretty good that if you have problems booting with the “Try Ubuntu” option, you will have problems with a full blown installation as well.

3. Test Your System For Compatibility

If all went well with the Live CD initialization, after a short boot sequence you should find yourself greeted by a fully functional desktop with which to experiment and test your hardware. To get a quick overview of native driver support you can click system, preferences, hardware information. This will give you a list of hardware detected on your PC similar to the Device Manager in Windows.

For a quick and easy way to verify basic compatibility, try using the built in utility located under system, administration, hardware testing. This will walk you step by step through compatibility checks on your video, audio, and input devices. If you manage to pass each stage of the test with without issue, you should have no trouble getting your hardware up and running after a permanent installation. So if you’re now ready to give Ubuntu a home in your system, and have 4GB of disk space to spare on your hard drive, go ahead and restart the computer and boot back into Windows to begin the installation.

4. Install Ubuntu Without Formatting or Repartitioning Your Drives

Your Live CD contains a new feature that can be accessed from the autorun menu in Windows called Wubi (Windows Ubuntu Installer). This interface will allow you to install Linux to any drive on your PC and the option of booting from any OS each time you start your machine. A key advantage here is that since we are installing Ubuntu from within Windows, it can be uninstalled at any time using the Add/Remove Programs utility.

Despite what many people believe, however, this install is not a virtual machine. It works more like a disk image creating a block of data on the drive. This carries a little bit of a performance penalty, but nowhere near what you encounter when you run an OS within an OS. At this point you can simply follow the installer.

Setup Options:

1.) Installation Drive – Which hard disk you wish to install to. If you choose the “C” drive, for example, the image will be located under c:\ubuntu
2.) Installation Size – It is important you pick the size that you think will suit you needs. If you only intend to dabble in the OS, 4 to 8GB should be enough.
3.) Username / Password – Make sure you write this down. Once the OS is installed you will need this to log in.
4.) Click “install”. The amount of time required to complete this step depends very much on the speed of your internet connection, since many of the install files are downloaded on the fly. Upon completion, you will be asked to reboot, after which you’ll be greeted with a new boot loader on startup that’ll give you the option to pick Windows or Ubuntu.

5. Update the OS

Just like a clean install of Windows, one of the first things you will want to do with your fresh copy of Linux is check for updates. This can be accomplished by clicking on System, Administration, Update Manager. Available updates should quickly populate your list. After you have reviewed your options, click Install Updates. If you fail to receive any updates, try launching Firefox by click on the icon along the top to verify a working internet connection. You will want to make sure you are connected to the internet through a wired Ethernet connection since wireless networking may require you to hunt down and download additional wifi hardware drivers first.

6. Driver Configuration

If you only plan to use your copy of Linux for basic applications such as email, web browsing, or Open Office, you may not need to worry about additional drivers. Ubuntu comes bundled with many open source-equivalent drivers. But if you plan on running anything that requires 3D acceleration, rock out to an aftermarket sound card, or even enable most wifi devices, a bit of extra configuration might be required.

If Ubuntu didn’t automatically activate your hardware, it doesn’t necessarily imply that the appropriate drivers don’t exist, rather it might just mean it might not open source. The primary vision of the Linux project is an operating system without restrictions. Some companies such as ATI and Nvidia, however, don’t want to open its drivers because doing so could reveal proprietary information to their competitors. To enable accelerated graphics using proprietary drivers you need to access the menu system and click System, Administration, Hardware Drivers to view a list of your options and activate them manually. You can download the latest versions of these drivers using the links listed below, but until you become more familiar with how to work under the Unix terminal it might be best to stick with the built-in generic drivers.

ATI Linux Display Drivers and FAQ

Nvidia Linux Display Drivers and FAQ

Creative Labs Linux Display Drivers and FAQ

All Other Drivers

7. Alternative Software Options

Because we are dealing with an entirely new operating system, most of your Windows applications will be incompatible (ie. you can’t just pop in an install CD and expect it work). While some of your apps can be made to work under Linux using emulation packages such as Wine and Cross Over, the process could end up being more trouble then it is worth. I’ve listed a few of the recommended open source options below.

Web Browsing

Hardy Heron comes with Firefox 3 built in, but if you prefer an alternative you can also use the newest version of Opera.

Word Processing

If you aren’t satisfied with the preinstalled Open Office you can try installing Microsoft Office using Wine, try something like KOffice , or even just use Google Docs.

Image Editing

The built in GIMP image editor is powerful enough for most users, but if you find yourself needing more manipulation options you could always try Photogenics.

Media Viewers

The built in Movie Player works well for standard media formats, but for extra codec support I suggest trying VLC Player. Additionally, MP3 play back isn’t supported in Linux because it’s actually a proprietary format. If you aren’t prepared to convert your entire music collection to the open source OGG format, some alternatives exist such as Zinf or MJS to play MP3’s natively in Linux.

8. Enjoy Linux!

If you decide Linux isn’t for you, you can always boot back into Windows and navigate over to the Add/Remove Programs Utility to turn back the clock. If you do decide to stick with Ubuntu, you can always try running a dedicated install on another machine or set up a permanent dual-boot the next time you format and repartition your system. To do this, just skip step 4 and double click “install” on the Ubuntu desktop when you boot from your live CD.

Share your Ubuntu experiences in the comments section below!

Dynamic Drives, the Slow Burn, and Stuff Hitting the Fan

The Maximum PC Doctor — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:23:30 -0600

Dynamic Difficulties

Recently, I installed a Maxtor 300GB hard drive. It seemed that a dynamic drive would be a good thing, so when the opportunity presented itself, I created a 300GB dynamic drive and installed Windows XP Pro on it. However, I did not intend to create a 300GB boot disk. How do I change the size of the dynamic drive?

 —Ralph Galinat

According to Microsoft, you can’t resize a dynamic volume when it’s the system or boot volume. Or rather, you can’t do it with any version of Windows XP.

Windows Vista will allow you to resize any dynamic volume, regardless of whether it’s a system volume or not. But purchasing Vista is a rather pricey fix if all you want to do is shrink or extend a volume. The Doctor knows of a good freeware solution, but it’ll require a little bit of technological know-how. It’s called GParted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net), and it’s a Linux-based partition-management utility that loads off a LiveCD.

After you download the program, burn its .iso image to a CD. Once that’s done, simply leave the CD in your drive and reboot your computer. If your motherboard doesn’t give you a keyboard shortcut for a boot menu, you’ll need to go into the BIOS and change the boot priority to CD-ROM before hard drive. GParted will fire up and you’ll be able to tweak the sizes of your volumes until it hurts—easy as pie.

GParted doesn’t come with any built-in help, so it would behoove you to back up your important data before mucking around with drive partitioning. If you’re still apprehensive about the entire process, your other option is to pick up a copy of Norton’s Partition Magic—it’ll do the same thing as GParted for around $50.

On a side note, dynamic drives in Windows are a poor man’s RAID. If your motherboard supports RAID, you’ll get faster speeds (and more options) by chaining drives together than any dynamic drive configuration could provide.

I’m Burnin’ for You

I have a homebuilt computer with the following components: an Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, an Asus P4S800D-X mobo, an ATI original Radeon 64MB videocard, and a Lite-On SOHW 1633 DVD-RW drive.

When I go to fill a DVD-RW full of files (4.3GB or so), I pick maximum (16x) for the burn speed. However, the burns take almost an hour! Do you have any suggestions as to what I could do to speed up these burns? The files are mostly MP3s from 3MB to 6MB in size.

—Dave Weinmann

The Doctor consulted with the ol’ Optical Storage Technology Association for this one, which explained that a 4x DVD read/write speed translates to about a 5.28MB/s transfer rate. If you’re packing 4.3GB onto a DVD, that equals about 13.9 minutes of time, which is nearly one-fourth of the 60-minute times you’re reporting.

Now that the Doc’s finished the math lesson, let’s address your problem. He suspects that your computer is running your optical drive in PIO mode instead of DMA mode. The former stands for programmed input/output mode, and it’s absurdly slow compared to the latter—direct memory access mode.

To switch to DMA mode, right-click the My Computer icon and select Properties. Then click the Hardware tab at the top of the System Properties window that pops up. From there, you’ll want to click Device Manager. When that window jumps to the forefront, click on the plus box to expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers listing. You’ll now want to right-click each nested category, hit Properties, and scroll through the associated tabs. Look for any options that speak to a Transfer Mode or Current Transfer Mode. Undoubtedly, you will find that some are set to the PIO Only value. Change these to DMA, and you’ll be set.
If you find that your write speeds are still slow or your OS doesn’t exactly pick up on the changes as well as expected, you can try uninstalling and reinstalling the IDE channel. To do that, just right-click both your primary and secondary IDE channels and uninstall them. Restart your computer once you’re done. Windows will refind the channels, and they should go to DMA mode by default.

The ____ Hits the Fan!

I just built my new rig, and it’s great. There’s one problem though. I put all my gear in an Antec P190 case, and I’m using an 8800 GTX videocard. The power cables coming off the card are millimeters from being in that huge 20cm fan on the side of my case. If any pressure is applied to the case door, the cables touch the blades and a nasty sound ensues. Is there a more malleable cable I can use?

—Dieter Eggers

The Doctor suspects that you’re using the thinnest power supply cabling possible, as opposed to chunky, hard-to-flex modular cable. Seeing as your cables just barely clear the fan, you might want to grab some cable ties and bundle the cables as close to the 8800 as you can—at the very least, you might be able to get them taut enough so that they’ll always stay right up against the card and never move. Make sure the rest of the bundled cable is routed in such a way that the section near the card’s PCI Express power connector will never move.

When the Doctor was 17, he had a very good computer. A very good computer he ran with an OS called Windows XP. His rig’s name was Brian McGee. All night it played nothing but Queen. When the Doctor was 17. If you need computer help, you should send an e-mail to doctor@maximumpc.com.