Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo, new computer, still a bit confused

[Mick]

On Saturday 23 Jul 2011 07:25:42 Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On 7/22/2011 9:53 PM, CJoeB wrote:
> > Because this will be a new computer and I may essentially void the
> > warranty if I alter the pre-configuration, I seriously thought about
> > leaving the status quo and putting up with Windows 7.  However, I would
> > lose practically as much as losing my first born!  I would have to put
> > up with all the things that bug me about Windows and I wouldn't have all
> > the programs that I love in Linux.

No you don't *have* to put up with Windows 7 - you can shrink the Windows OS 
partition and install Gentoo in the recovered disk space.  See more on this 
below.


> If you are truly concerned about the warranty issue then you
> would, of course, want to have someone read the actual
> warrant paperwork that you have. However, typically the only
> way to void a hardware warranty is to tamper with the hardware.
>
> If you replace Windows with Linux on a new PC, you will may
> lose any free technical support (for software, drivers, etc(
> you may be entitled to as long as you continue to run this
> "unsupported" condition. But if you actually have faulty
> hardware, they aren't going to refuse to replace or repair
> it just because you installed software. Plus, Dell in
> particular "supports" Linux in a marginally useful way on
> some of their laptops, so they do have self-help information
> that would be relevant to you on their site.

Strictly speaking this may be true, however, you try and reason over the 
telephone with some support person in a foreign country, who's reading from a 
script and keeps asking you to reboot the machine or run the Dell diagnostics 
<aheam!> spyware that originally came with it!

I seem to recall a case where a user wiped their drive clean and installed 
Ubuntu or some such.  The laptop went faulty and the person asked for it to be 
repaired/replaced under warranty, only to be told that this could not be 
honoured without the original OS on the machine!  I think it was this one:

http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/114250

I believe that after the media got involved the OEM backtracked and fixed the 
laptop, but is this something you would want to have to argue through just so 
that they fix your *new* machine?

Plus, there may be a legal and legitimate case for Dell to refuse to 
a)diagnose the problem without the OEM software and OS installed; and b)they 
could potentially argue that your Linux OS and your configuration could have 
somehow hammered the drive/NIC/Video card etc to the point of causing a 
hardware failure.  I couldn't blame them for not wanting to look into your 
hdparm settings or what not.  ;-)


> In the worst case, if you needed to ship your machine back
> to the manufacturer for repairs, you should receive a set of
> restore media with any new PC that would allow you to put
> your system back to factory default, and make your
> manufacturer more than satisfied.

These days the restore media are often on a separate partition on the drive.


This is what I did with my Dell as soon as I got it:

1. Burned a SystemRescue CD.

2. Booted the laptop with the CD.  Note: You should immediately press F2 to 
get into BIOS to enable booting from DVD drive, before the Dell FreeDOS system 
boots up and the Dell Windows 7 install script starts running).

3. Used PartImage or dd or similar to create back up images for each Dell 
partition.  (There were 3 partitions in total: Dell recovery OS, a MSWindows 
boot partition and the main Windows 7 OS partition.)

4. Then you need to decide if you're going with a dual boot system, or Gentoo 
only.

I decided to have a dual boot system, rather than having to restore from 
scratch if there was a warranty claim.  So here is what I did next:

5. Used qparted to shrink Windows 7 to something like 50G - you may need/want 
more than that.  Now boot fully into Windows 7 and let it run chkdsk *without* 
interrupting it (takes ages).  Once you make sure your Windows 7 can boot up 
and works as promised you can move on with installing Gentoo.

6. Created new partitions (swap, /boot, /, /home, /var, /usr/portage), 
formatted them and then installed Gentoo as per the guidebook.  Except for 
installing GRUB.

7. I installed GRUB in the /boot partition, *not* in the MBR of /dev/sda - 
just in case Dell were to decided to decline support because I interfered with 
the MBR.  Instead I used the Windows 7 boot loader to chainload my GRUB boot 
code.  For details on this you can have a look here:  

 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/227265

YMMV because Dell and MSWindows may have changed the way the do things at 
first run. So please don't blame me if the above suggestions don't work out 
for you!  ;-)

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick