SKYLAB CHAT

[skylab]

Miss B, if you don't mind refurbished equipment, Tiger Direct has drives running Windows 7 Pro....that's how I ended up with a workstation in both areas...got two of their desktops for under what I would have paid for one anywhere locally. You might have to custom order one with nVidia. Go here for refurbished hard drives.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Yeah, I forgot your Bear is IT...so he can handle that no problem, if everything else is checking out okay. I know you'll be glad to get your computer back up and running.

Actually, although he is IT, this is something I can do myself. I have learned quite a bit from him over the years! LOL. These days, he mostly only steps in if I've been hammering on an IT problem for a few weeks without being able to fix it.

Unfortunately, I refuse to upgrade to Windows10, so my only alternative is Linux, and there are so many distros available, I'm not sure which would be the best for working with 3D apps. ~sigh~

IIRC Miss B, the Ubuntu distro is your best bet. I think you would still need a Windows emulator to run the 3D applications, though, regardless of which Linux distro you used. Ubuntu is what we had installed originally on my old desktop at one point. It didn't work well for me back then because of the aging hardware in that desktop, but it handled 3D pretty well with an emulator, IIRC.

 

[skylab]

Refurbished laptops here, with Windows 7...had to look for those, since I'd never pursued that before.

 

[skylab]

Oh, so you'll do the tinkering yourself Seliah...haha...well, I used to do it too, a little, when circumstances demanded.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Oh, so you'll do the tinkering yourself Seliah...haha...well, I used to do it too, a little, when circumstances demanded.

Yes, I can perform laptop surgery myself these days. I've done it before on other machines. I actually have custom-built systems for people in the past. I can usually solve my own IT problems these days. It's very rare that I have to ask for my Bear to step in and help.

Laptop surgery is simple enough; it's just time consuming depending on how the case is put together and all of that. But I can't see junking an $800 laptop when all it needs is a $65 hard drive.

 

[skylab]

Exactly...that's what they're doing with refurbished machines...just replacing the failing part.

 

[skylab]

I wanted to invest in extra Win7 drives for the future, for family members as well as myself, so I did that last year, ordered a total four to go around, and all are working fine so far.

 

[Miss B]

IIRC Miss B, the Ubuntu distro is your best bet. I think you would still need a Windows emulator to run the 3D applications, though, regardless of which Linux distro you used. Ubuntu is what we had installed originally on my old desktop at one point. It didn't work well for me back then because of the aging hardware in that desktop, but it handled 3D pretty well with an emulator, IIRC.

Yes, most distros come with Wine, so that's what I've been looking for. I did a search at one point and found a site that listed all, or most of, the 3D apps out there, and whether they would work. The only one I didn't find on the list was MD, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work with Wine.

I was looking at an IT acquaintance recommended Mageia, so haven't decided as yet. In fact, several distros have Blender included. Unfortunately, for 2D graphics they include Gimp, and I prefer Photoshop. Of course with Wine it won't matter.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Hmm. I never heard of Mageia. We're going to go the Ubuntu to Win7 pipeline on the new HD here, if it doesn't cooperate with going straight to Win7. I can't see a new/blank HD having issues with going straight to Win7, but just in case it does, I made two bootable USB thumb drives. One with Ubuntu, and one with Win7. LOL

I wanted to invest in extra Win7 drives for the future, for family members as well as myself, so I did that last year, ordered a total four to go around, and all are working fine so far.

Yep, I can see how that would be beneficial, Sky. Since I'm dealing with a laptop, I cannot add a second internal, but I have plenty of externals to work from for the extra storage space.

 

[skylab]

I use large external drives for backup as well. When my health started taking a turn, I wanted to make sure family members had all they would need using Windows 7, and sorta abandoned the idea of going Linux for that reason, in case I was unable to maintain things for them. I also thought in terms of all the potential software conflicts, and I needed the easiest option possible even for myself. But if you can get things to work with an emulator, hey, whatever. My first experience with an operating system emulator was many years ago, using a DOS emulator on a Mac Quadra, which would be the same time frame and about the equivalent to a 486 PC with a fast processor...at the time folks were amazed over being able to see pictures and video on a Mac, so running DOS inside a box on the Mac was a real novelty.

 

[Miss B]

Well as long as we're going down memory lane, my first experience with Windows was Windows 3.11 for Work Groups, and it ran under DOS 5.0 on my first laptop. This was long before Windows95, which pretty much left most of DOS behind in the dust.

It was fun being able to go with either my DOS apps or Windows, and I wrote a nice little menu so I could boot up to whichever OS I wanted to work with on any given day.

 

[Vanish]

Oh the nightmares of IT past you just stirred up for me, Miss B! :shiver: Supporting Windows 3.11 professionally was an exercise in futility. I was so happy when Win95 and NT were released. Made life as an IT pro MUCH easier.

 

[skylab]

IRAY Metal Shaders

IRAY Velvet Shaders

IRAY Camo Shader

IRAY Gel Shaders

IRAY Car Shaders

IRAY Fabric Shaders

IRAY Shaders

IRAY Gemstone Shaders

IRAY Pearl Shaders

IRAY Mirror Shader

IRAY Shader for Light Swords

IRAY Morphing Flame

IRAY Lighting Presets

IRAY Leather Shaders


Just a few freebie IRAY shaders for DS users, in case you're interested...have fun

 

[Vanish]

328 Iray Shaders based on Nobiax Texture Packs. It's a BIG download, but boy is it worth it.

 

[skylab]

Oh yes, I remember those days too. Actually started with DOS, and remember WordPerfect 5.1...haha....on a 286 with a black and white monitor. Graduated to a 386 running Windows 3.11, with Microsoft Word, I think version 6...and at the same time was running the Mac Quadra, then 486 with Windows 3.11...then came the Pentium drives, running Windows 98. That's when I first got on the internet, before things got so commercial and crazy, and later got one of the first Windows XP drives in fall of 2001...thought I was smokin' with 256 mg of ram...haha.

 

[Miss B]

Oh those do bring back memories. My Win95 gave way to a Win98, and my last laptop had WinXP and would probably still be using it, but I dropped it one to many times. Then again, it was 8 1/2 years old, so I got my money's worth out of it. Now the thought of giving up my Win7 laptop, as much as I really dislike it, is making me nervous.

As a programmer/web designer, I've always wanted a Linux machine, but as a second, not my main computer, so it'll be interesting to see. One good thing is, you can run Linux off a USB stick, so I can plug it in and play before deciding exactly which distro I'm going to wind up with.

 

[skylab]

That does sound like the safest option...to try the USB method before totally committing to it. If you just did email and light surfing, no problem, it would be the safer way to go....but with all the 3D applications that you've become accustomed to using, best to be safe. That's why I mentioned the refurbished machines at TigerDirect.com...it may even provide a second option, in addition to Linux. Just something to think about. I'm doing all my projects now on Win7 refurbished drives...and except for IRAY and Superfly being dog slow, I've done pretty much okay. I don't have the system resources for huge scenes because I'm using integrated graphics, no special video card, and I only have 8 gig of ram. But for what I have, and having gotten them for about $200 each, one was even $125 during a Christmas sale, I certainly have no regrets...they do what I need them to do.

 

[skylab]

Well, I guess Seliah is in the midst of her drive surgery by now...we'll know when she comes back online if the operation was a success

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Well, heck. Miss B, do you remember BASIC? LOL! I wrote very simple computer programs in that... VBasic came out and confused me, but eventually I figured it out.

And then there was COBOL... *shudders!*

My first ever pc was an IBM XT - it had a total of 640kb in memory, and the display could be in three colors - white, green, or amber!

My Bear had an old Commodore-64 as his first machine!

Windows 3.1 - ewwwwwww I was SO glad when 95 came out... and then 98 was released and was horrible! This was followed by 98SE, which I fell in love with... we tested out WinME, it picked up viruses faster than a magnet picks up metal shavings! We got rid of that one pretty fast.

I sort of stuck with XP until my old desktop just finally died.. and then my laptop here, when I bought it, it shipped with 8.1. Ewww. Couldn't downgrade to 7, refused to upgrade to 10. With the new HD, at least I can go to Win7.

Laptop surgery is successfully completed. New HD is installed. Currently in the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive for Win7 now...

...ya might think I learned a thing or two from my fuzzy grumpy Bear! LOL

 

[skylab]

Yay! It was a success And so glad you're able to back down to Windows 7, that may make life easier. Don't forget to pick of the free GWX utility to block Win10 junk from downloading. Have it on all my drives, works great.