From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DSddn-0005f1-99 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 02 May 2005 12:19:29 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DSddT-0005b9-2S for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 02 May 2005 12:19:07 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DSddO-0005UO-Ih for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 02 May 2005 12:19:02 -0400 Received: from [209.55.4.210] (helo=mxo1.broadbandsupport.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DSdex-0003EL-S3 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 02 May 2005 12:20:40 -0400 Message-ID: <001c01c54f32$3deedab0$334d21d1@organiza3bfb0e> From: References: <20050429172811.GQRX28600.lakermmtao11.cox.net@smtp.east.cox.net><001201c54ce8$1f01c320$334d21d1@organiza3bfb0e> Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Windows Laptop Idea Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 11:13:31 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Reply-To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Thomas Steffen , qemu-devel@nongnu.org Thomas; >> Unfortunately, there aren't too many disk imaging programs I'd = recommend. >> Both Norton Ghost (the old version) and DriveImage (the old version) = have problems. >I agree here. Norton really seems like technology from the past (DOS, >16bit mode etc). I disagree about that part. The underlying OS is pretty much irrelevant because Ghost takes over and = does most things itself. Realistically it wouldn't be any better performance etc. if it ran Linux = or embedded XP, etc. It would be more convenient for the programmers, = but that's about all. Also, I'm not aware of any version of Linux that is small enough to fit = onto a 1.44mb floppy (while still having all the needed drivers) and = leave more than a meg on the disk for the backup program itself. (The = reality is that bootable floppies are still often far more convenient = than a more fragile bootable cd.) Just because an OS is 16 bit doesn't mean it's automatically bad. Maybe I'm being a bit over sensitive here, but I've been using computers = at home for more than 20 years. A whole lot can be done with 8 bit = systems. More can be done with 16 bit systems. 32 bits and 64 bits are = nice and can make things more convenient, but that doesn't mean that = nothing good can be done on 8 or 16 bit systems. I'm not a fan of DOS or the 8088 etc., but I'm not going to ignore that = very useful things can be done with them. Just because Linux is the = latest fashionable OS doesn't mean useful programs can't exist for other = OS's. The faults in Ghost have little or nothing to do with it booting off a = DOS floppy. Things like: 1) Writing to the disk while making a backup (it should only read the = disk, not write to it.) 2) Trying to put too much data onto a cd and being unable to close it = right. (Or maybe that's some other writing error.) 3) Failure of self checks while dealing with NTFS file systems. 4) By defualt not putting NTFS files back exactly where they were, but = reorganizing the file system. Those and other problems are programming issues, not OS problems. >But I can recommend two programs. The first ist OSS: partimage. It >certainly has its limitations (e.g. it does not know anything about I've known of partimage for quite a while, but I wouldn't recommend it = for two reasons. First, it's not even vaguely user friendly. The interface was definetly = not written for regular users. It was written for advanced users and = developers. More specifically, Linux users and developers. Also, it appears that it can't actually save the compressed disk image = to a cd or dvd. You've got to back up to another drive or partition and then copy them = to cd/dvd yourself. To me, that's a fatal flaw in any program claiming to be a backup = program. Makes it worthless because it's too inconvenient to actually = use. And a backup program you don't use is utterly worthless. Maybe I'm wrong... but there's nothing what so ever in the docs to even = suggest it can burn directly to a cd or dvd. Between that and the poor = user interface, I've never actually used it. Just booted it up to see = what it looked like. The poor user interface of PartImage is enough to = keep me using Ghost or DriveImage, in spite of their problems. I think this thread has gotten a wee bit off topic for this mailing = list...