Speakup and vinux

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi

Google that information.  I'm sure that writing 512 destroys the
partition table too.  It's something like 496 for managing the mbr.  But
google and check.

On Tue, 2010-01-05 at 22:30 +0100, Øyvind Lode wrote:
> If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows boot
> loader) before installing.
> If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows will
> boot as normal again.
> 
> Use dd to backup:
> 
> # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
> 
> If you need to restore:
> # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
> 
> When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and make
> sure you don't accidently use a different file.
> If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just write
> 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
> That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
> 
> Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
> /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
> Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
> Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux 
> 
> 	It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
> appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
> around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
> painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
> forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
> 
> 	If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
> speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows more
> than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are not
> root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is no
> undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
> files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and the OS
> may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
> something else.
> 
> 	Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
> a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they constantly
> act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
> disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure they
> all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to waste
> time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a file,
> it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
> 
> 	The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
> much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the iso
> image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the installer,
> you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
> talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just
> as if you were logged in.
> 
> 	Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
> destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a short
> time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to watch
> out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot
> sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
> system so I can't help much there
> 
> 	The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
> 
> Martin McCormick
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
-- 
Gena


four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

    * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
    * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
    * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access
to the source code is a precondition for this.

Richard Matthew Stallman