My mothers computer had died. Well, the Linux on it was still working, so she was able to open her document files, read her email and use chat. Pretty much everything works under Linux, with the exception of using the Fax functionality of the AVM Fritz!Box via CAPI-over-TCP. (Ironically, the Fritz!Box itself runs Linux, so it's just because AVM doesn't bother to supply a Linux client too).

Anyway. Logging in remotely, I quickly found out that the hard drive had serious issues, with lots of bad sectors on the main Windows partition (fortunately, we kept system data and user data separate!). So I'm not blaming Microsoft for dying (but Samsung; since this is the second time within three years the drive has died, I guess I won't be buying a Samsung HD anytime soon).

Last weekend, I bought a new hard disk and went to my parents to fix it. I copied over the partitions (some 64k data could not be read any more), and tried to get Windows up again, too. (Linux was trivial; copy, boot record, done)

So I ended up doing a "rescue" Windows installation, using the XP service pack 2 CD. I figure this is still the latest setup for XP available? It went through the usual driver-loading, did the first part of the installation, rebooted into the new system, did this "estimated time 39 Minutes" setup screen. After like 10-15 Minutes, it had a bluescreen, dumped memory and rebooted. And cycled through that again and again.

It took me like 6 hours total to get the Windows system fixed (mostly waiting for the Microsoft setup to run through again). I figure that there aren't many users out there that actually could have fixed that Windows. The reason is simple: Microsoft crappy setup. Probably to protect it's serial number thingy or just to display fancier graphics, setup refuses to work in safe mode. And the bluescreen even suggested to try the safe mode, just to display the message "setup.exe doesn't work in safe mode, click OK to reboot".

If I could have used that "safe mode", fixing would have been a lot easier. The bluescreen mentioned a device driver ati2something.sys; apparently part of the ATI video driver. So I tried the rescue console of the XP CD to just kill that driver, but setup kept on actually reinstalling the file.

The way I fixed it in the end is simple: Linux to the rescue. I booted the (working like a charm) Linux installation, accessed the main Windows partition using ntfs-3g, found all references to the ATI driver in the Windows\Inf driectory and removed them.

After I had removed these references, Microsofts setup.exe completed, and I had a working-again Windows in VGA mode. Then I could install the ATI drivers again. Microsoft really needs to work on that setup, it needs to allow disabling certain drivers and similar rescue things.

Maybe Microsoft should start shipping a Knoppix CD with Windows, for repair.

If you are doing websites, you might want to test them with Safari as well.

Sure, konqueror and midori (which uses GTK webkit) already provide a pretty good approximation on Safari rendering, but there might still be differences.

Here's how to run Safari on Linux:

• run winecfg, set Windows version to WinXP.
• copy the core windows fonts:

  cp /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/{Arial,Times_New_Roman}*.ttf ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts/
  

• Download Safari for Windows from the Apple homepage
• Run the Safari installer with Wine. Do not install Bonjour or the Apple updater.
• Run Safari

The biggest 'trick' for me was to install the Microsoft fonts. Without them, Safari would segfault when rendering the URL bar the first time.

Step 2 assumes you have the Microsoft fonts already installed on your system in the place typical for Debian and Ubuntu users. If you don't find out how to get the required ttf files yourself. You maybe also can just symlink them.

Wine can indeed run most Windows applications by now...

P.S. ies4linux claims to have a way of installing and running MS IE 7 on Linux. I didn't test this. But that would give you the full array of major browsers on Linux: IE6, IE7, Safari, Iceweasel (Firefox), Opera. And tons of more usable and better integrated browsers such as Epiphany. :-)

When I first read this comic strip [sinfest], I was about to complain "Dude, you know that the earth doesn't go round the sun once a day".

Then I realized that this was the 1.1.2008 strip, and well, I guess once a year it is more appropriate.

Thats what you get for reading comic strips in the morning (and mind you, it's a comic strip showing a sunrise, with no hint about it being an annual and not a daily thing)

So, did you pat earth for completing another lap around the sun yet? :-)

Happy new year, everybody!