Install Linux - only £28

On 4/1/20 10:47 AM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

[snip]

Steep price to pay for a five dollar USB stick and a free Linux distro.

Rene

and you'd have to get the (also free) program to put it on a bootable
USB stick (and have a working PC to do so).

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

nospam wrote:
In article , Ed Cryer
wrote:

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

Did anyone besides me pay attention to the date of the article?

April 1, 2020, today, April Fool's Day. LOL

don't laugh too hard, because it's not any sort of april fool's prank.

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com


Right. I googled "Xtra-PC" and got
About 16,600,000 results (0.46 seconds)

I've even looked at professional reviews of it, and found people saying
things like "OK, so you have a clapped-out old PC; this will make it
accessible".

a lot of 'reviews' are little more than paid ads, something which is
not unique to this product.

And, OK, I agree. But they seem to have missed the blaring scam factor;
which is that you pay £28 ($34.99) for a used 16GB memory stick, even
more if you want it on a larger stick.

they're selling a prepackaged solution rather than 'some assembly
required'. nothing unusual about that.

someone who is not computer savvy isn't going to know where to start to
download a linux distro and copy it to a usb stick, let alone actually
do it, or they might have a slow internet connection where that would
be very impractical.

the scam is that they're making very specious claims.

Look at their website. They even have
pop-up Rachel waiting to answer live questions.
https://www.xtra-pc.com/

i block popups, so i guess i miss out on rachel, although not enough to
unblock them.

This one in particular gets me very angry;
"It even works with missing or faulty hard drives. Since it runs on a
USB stick, your existing computer is not altered, and you?ll have access
to all of your old files"

Hhhmmm! Now that claim must be criminal.

it's carefully worded and technically true, therefore not criminal.


Just for fun (well, also because I'm in lockdown) I decided to get
Ubuntu on a bootable 16GB stick.
Downloaded a Ubuntu iso, 10 mins
Downloaded Rufus program, 1 min
Got stick out of cupboard and inserted in USB slot, 1.5 mins
Ran Rufus, 5 mins
Booted into Linux, 1 min
Tested for 5 mins until nausea at how slow it was set in, 5 mins

Oh, and search for info on how to do it, 1 min
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutoria...ows#1-overview

Total time, 24.5 mins

Ed

On Wed, 1 Apr 2020 20:33:26 +0100
Ed Cryer wrote:

nospam wrote:
In article , Ed Cryer
wrote:

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this
one? I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls'
money.

Did anyone besides me pay attention to the date of the article?

April 1, 2020, today, April Fool's Day. LOL

don't laugh too hard, because it's not any sort of april fool's
prank.

it's very much a real product which has been around for years,
and not the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com


Right. I googled "Xtra-PC" and got
About 16,600,000 results (0.46 seconds)

I've even looked at professional reviews of it, and found people
saying things like "OK, so you have a clapped-out old PC; this
will make it accessible".

a lot of 'reviews' are little more than paid ads, something which is
not unique to this product.

And, OK, I agree. But they seem to have missed the blaring scam
factor; which is that you pay £28 ($34.99) for a used 16GB memory
stick, even more if you want it on a larger stick.

they're selling a prepackaged solution rather than 'some assembly
required'. nothing unusual about that.

someone who is not computer savvy isn't going to know where to
start to download a linux distro and copy it to a usb stick, let
alone actually do it, or they might have a slow internet connection
where that would be very impractical.

the scam is that they're making very specious claims.

Look at their website. They even have
pop-up Rachel waiting to answer live questions.
https://www.xtra-pc.com/

i block popups, so i guess i miss out on rachel, although not
enough to unblock them.

This one in particular gets me very angry;
"It even works with missing or faulty hard drives. Since it runs
on a USB stick, your existing computer is not altered, and you?ll
have access to all of your old files"

Hhhmmm! Now that claim must be criminal.

it's carefully worded and technically true, therefore not criminal.


Just for fun (well, also because I'm in lockdown) I decided to get
Ubuntu on a bootable 16GB stick.
Downloaded a Ubuntu iso, 10 mins
Downloaded Rufus program, 1 min
Got stick out of cupboard and inserted in USB slot, 1.5 mins
Ran Rufus, 5 mins
Booted into Linux, 1 min
Tested for 5 mins until nausea at how slow it was set in, 5 mins

Oh, and search for info on how to do it, 1 min
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutoria...ows#1-overview

Total time, 24.5 mins

Ed



Try this: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3834

If that doesn't run fast you have a problem with your computer.

Frank Slootweg wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-04-01 10:39 a.m., Ed Cryer wrote:
nospam wrote:

[...]

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com

[...]

Steep price to pay for a five dollar USB stick and a free Linux distro.

As nospam wrote (in another response), it's much more than that, it's
- as nospam put it - a prepackaged solution.

From looking at the website, it seems well thought out, ready to use,
easy to use, well documented, etc.. *That* is the added value.

That's completely different from your run-of-the-mill "free Linux
distro".

Whether the added value is worth £28 (minus the value of the stick)
is another matter and so is if there's much of a market for such a
device. But most people would not be able to create the equivalent by
themselves, so ...


https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ $0

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Johnny wrote:
Tested for 5 mins until nausea at how slow it was set in, 5 mins

If it is slow do you have USB1.1?

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

In article , Ed Cryer
wrote:


Just for fun (well, also because I'm in lockdown) I decided to get
Ubuntu on a bootable 16GB stick.
Downloaded a Ubuntu iso, 10 mins
Downloaded Rufus program, 1 min
Got stick out of cupboard and inserted in USB slot, 1.5 mins
Ran Rufus, 5 mins
Booted into Linux, 1 min
Tested for 5 mins until nausea at how slow it was set in, 5 mins

Oh, and search for info on how to do it, 1 min
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutoria...ows#1-overview

Total time, 24.5 mins

that's because you know what to do. not everyone does. plus it includes
a number of apps.

Ed Cryer wrote:

Just for fun (well, also because I'm in lockdown) I decided to get
Ubuntu on a bootable 16GB stick.
Downloaded a Ubuntu iso, 10 mins
Downloaded Rufus program, 1 min
Got stick out of cupboard and inserted in USB slot, 1.5 mins
Ran Rufus, 5 mins
Booted into Linux, 1 min
Tested for 5 mins until nausea at how slow it was set in, 5 mins

Oh, and search for info on how to do it, 1 min
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutoria...ows#1-overview


Total time, 24.5 mins

Ed

You might be able to get it to go faster with
a USB3 key, plugged into a USB2 port.

Low end USB3 keys, read at 100MB/sec and write
at 10MB/sec. They're "hopeless" on write in a sense.
But the read rate is good.

By connecting one of those to an older USB2 computer,
you can coax 30-35MB/sec while the machine is booting
and decompressing parts of the squashfs image.

The fastest USB storage I know of, is 700MB/sec,
but there won't be many machines with the right
flavor of port to plug that in. I've got nothing
quite that fast here.

If you did have storage media that fast, the boot
process is CPU limited (while the bringup does
have parallelism, there are still fiddly bits
that slow down some distros -- not every distro
is "optimized", and some popular ones are
just plain dreadful). If you're a boot racer,
you have to select a distro pretty carefully
to get a winner.

Splashtop could boot in about five seconds,
and some motherboards had a ROM with Splashtop
in it, back when that was a "thing".

Paul

Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:

Just for fun (well, also because I'm in lockdown) I decided to get
Ubuntu on a bootable 16GB stick.
Downloaded a Ubuntu iso, 10 mins
Downloaded Rufus program, 1 min
Got stick out of cupboard and inserted in USB slot, 1.5 mins
Ran Rufus, 5 mins
Booted into Linux, 1 min
Tested for 5 mins until nausea at how slow it was set in, 5 mins

Oh, and search for info on how to do it, 1 min
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutoria...ows#1-overview


Total time, 24.5 mins

Ed

You might be able to get it to go faster with
a USB3 key, plugged into a USB2 port.

Low end USB3 keys, read at 100MB/sec and write
at 10MB/sec. They're "hopeless" on write in a sense.
But the read rate is good.

By connecting one of those to an older USB2 computer,
you can coax 30-35MB/sec while the machine is booting
and decompressing parts of the squashfs image.

The fastest USB storage I know of, is 700MB/sec,
but there won't be many machines with the right
flavor of port to plug that in. I've got nothing
quite that fast here.

If you did have storage media that fast, the boot
process is CPU limited (while the bringup does
have parallelism, there are still fiddly bits
that slow down some distros -- not every distro
is "optimized", and some popular ones are
just plain dreadful). If you're a boot racer,
you have to select a distro pretty carefully
to get a winner.

Splashtop could boot in about five seconds,
and some motherboards had a ROM with Splashtop
in it, back when that was a "thing".

Â*Â* Paul

I put it on a USB2 flash drive, but plugged into a USB3 socket.
Why? Because I suspect very strongly that the scammy devils selling the
thing will have bought a job lot of obsolete USB2 sticks for a few pence
apiece; and I wanted my experiment to reflect the reality.

Don't tell me to copy it to a faster stick. I could do that easily
enough, but I don't want to. I had enough of Linux decades ago when the
only use I had for it was as an end-of-the-queue fail-safe for a failing
Windows system.

Ed

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
Frank Slootweg wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-04-01 10:39 a.m., Ed Cryer wrote:
nospam wrote:

[...]

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com

[...]

Steep price to pay for a five dollar USB stick and a free Linux distro.

As nospam wrote (in another response), it's much more than that, it's
- as nospam put it - a prepackaged solution.

From looking at the website, it seems well thought out, ready to use,
easy to use, well documented, etc.. *That* is the added value.

That's completely different from your run-of-the-mill "free Linux
distro".

Whether the added value is worth £28 (minus the value of the stick)
is another matter and so is if there's much of a market for such a
device. But most people would not be able to create the equivalent by
themselves, so ...

https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ $0

Not the same thing at all and not for the same kind of users. See also
Mark Lloyd's and nospam's responses.

So I repeat:

But most people would not be able to create the equivalent by
themselves, so ...

It doesn't matter what you, I and others in this group can do.
Completely different set of users.

BTW, have you *looked* at the Ultimate Boot CD page!? Do you really
think that Joe Average would even know what to do with that overwhelming
amount of 'information'? Not to mention the confusing and outright
dangerous ads [1]. This is *NOT* for laymen, period!

[1] The first one I get says "Start Download", but that will download a
utility to update drivers of my Windows system. When I click on
"Download UBCD" in the Table of Content, I get another 'DOWNLOAD'
button, which will not download UBCD, but will download yet other
unwanted software. Need I go on!?

On 4/1/20 5:44 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

No more a scam than the marketing of bottled water when most people
(residents of Flint, MI and some other places excepted) can get water
that must meet higher standards of purity from their faucets/taps.

Perce

On 4/2/20 9:31 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Jonathan N. Little wrote:
Frank Slootweg wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-04-01 10:39 a.m., Ed Cryer wrote:
nospam wrote:

[...]

it's very much a real product which has been around for years, and not
the only one of its type either.

https://www.xtra-pc.com

[...]

Steep price to pay for a five dollar USB stick and a free Linux distro.

As nospam wrote (in another response), it's much more than that, it's
- as nospam put it - a prepackaged solution.

From looking at the website, it seems well thought out, ready to use,
easy to use, well documented, etc.. *That* is the added value.

That's completely different from your run-of-the-mill "free Linux
distro".

Whether the added value is worth £28 (minus the value of the stick)
is another matter and so is if there's much of a market for such a
device. But most people would not be able to create the equivalent by
themselves, so ...

https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ $0

Not the same thing at all and not for the same kind of users. See also
Mark Lloyd's and nospam's responses.

So I repeat:

But most people would not be able to create the equivalent by
themselves, so ...

It doesn't matter what you, I and others in this group can do.
Completely different set of users.

BTW, have you *looked* at the Ultimate Boot CD page!? Do you really
think that Joe Average would even know what to do with that overwhelming
amount of 'information'? Not to mention the confusing and outright
dangerous ads [1]. This is *NOT* for laymen, period!

[1] The first one I get says "Start Download", but that will download a
utility to update drivers of my Windows system. When I click on
"Download UBCD" in the Table of Content, I get another 'DOWNLOAD'
button, which will not download UBCD, but will download yet other
unwanted software. Need I go on!?

Sadly, there is a lot of free software websites that use this misleading
practice. :-(


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article ,
Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 4/1/20 5:44 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
https://bit.ly/342Ofzx

Just how computer-non-savvy do you have to be to fall for this one?
I'd say "very", but I'll bet they get some simple souls' money.

No more a scam than the marketing of bottled water when most people
(residents of Flint, MI and some other places excepted) can get water
that must meet higher standards of purity from their faucets/taps.

I think that is true in major metros, but not necessarily in East Treestump.
In fact, a lot of things in life, such as cable TV, started out as fixes
for people living in the sticks, but then got morphed by the marketing
folks into something that everybody thinks they need. I'm betting that
bottled water is also in this category.

The other point is that I think bottled water also came about in large part
because people wanted something they could order with pride and pay for
like adults, even if they didn't actually want anything either sugary (soft
drinks) or with alcohol. In social situations where you get judged
primarily on how much you are spending, it is embarrassing to order "just
water" - even if it actually is the healthiest and best option.

--
The randomly chosen signature file that would have appeared here is more than 4
lines long. As such, it violates one or more Usenet RFCs. In order to remain
in compliance with said RFCs, the actual sig can be found at the following URL:
http://user.xmission.com/~gazelle/Sigs/Aspergers

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:


BTW, have you *looked* at the Ultimate Boot CD page!? Do you really
think that Joe Average would even know what to do with that overwhelming
amount of 'information'? Not to mention the confusing and outright
dangerous ads [1]. This is *NOT* for laymen, period!

[1] The first one I get says "Start Download", but that will download a
utility to update drivers of my Windows system. When I click on
"Download UBCD" in the Table of Content, I get another 'DOWNLOAD'
button, which will not download UBCD, but will download yet other
unwanted software. Need I go on!?

Sadly, there is a lot of free software websites that use this misleading
practice. :-(

it ain't just free software websites.

scams are nothing new and not limited to websites either.

Kenny McCormack wrote:

I think bottled water also came about in large part because people
wanted something they could order with pride

I worked for a local water bottling plant in a large metro area in the
early 60's. The drinking water was made to taste good by filtering
regular city water. The picture on the bottles was of an American Indian
maiden kneeling by a stream filling a jug...

"123456789" wrote in message
...
Kenny McCormack wrote:

I think bottled water also came about in large part because people wanted
something they could order with pride

I worked for a local water bottling plant in a large metro area in the
early 60's. The drinking water was made to taste good by filtering
regular city water. The picture on the bottles was of an American Indian
maiden kneeling by a stream filling a jug...

I am reminded of Tom Lehrer's comment in "Pollution":

The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay
They drink at lunch in San José.

There's noting wrong in using normal tapwater to make bottled water - as
long as they remove everything that makes it taste nasty and which is
harmful. In other words, judge everything by the end result, rather than the
starting point.

I'm not sure what the big issue is about bottled water. Do some people have
tapwater that is *so* bad that it is preferable to pay extortionate amounts
to buy bottled water instead? Maybe I'm fortunate: I've never lived anywhere
that the water has been undrinkable - with the single exception of a holiday
in Malta where the tapwater came from a desalination plant and had a nasty
salty taste.