I have been using windows 7 for the past three months it has been working fine.

Now I cannot get beyond:

Connecting to programmer:

I am using this Prolific driver:

PL2303_Prolific_DriverInstaller_v1.5.0.exe

I have problems with Windows 7 BSD (Blue Screen of Death) every couple of days and it was after one of these crashes that I got this problem.

Also there are always 2 Prolific com ports even if I remove one it reappears on the next reboot.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Ralph

Well that was easy, if not normal Windows aggravation.

I had said there were always two Prolific com ports COM3 and COM4.

For the past three months I had been using COM4.

For some reason Windows after a crash decided to not use COM4 any longer but is happy using COM3.

So it is working once I changed the COM port.

What a pain, oh well I just determined that I can use my Maxtor TripleHead2Go to power my three monitors with UBUNTU so now I just need to learn how to install UBUNTU and I'll make that my preferred OS.

I haven't run Linux since it came on 36 floppy disks so it should be fun to see how it looks now.

Ralph

Ralph -

I might be taking the Linux leap pretty soon myself. I found out you can run the whole OS off a thumb drive.

I found out you can run the whole OS off a thumb drive.

Yeah the actual Linux kernel is actually very small it is the tons of libraries that come with a Linux install that take up so much space.

Of course I also have a Rasberry Pi coming which I hope to run Linux on.

Ralph

You didn't buy Rick's PI off of E-Bay did you?

Ralph, Where did you buy your Raspberry Pi i have been watching the thing on engadget and wouldn't mind picking one up to play with. Thanks Jim

No, Ralph didn't buy my 1st spare. The pi is fun to play with, I'm looking forward to playing with it more, but for now I have other things I'm working on... Mainly a truck I just bought that needs a lot of attention - tune-up, shocks, AC repair (Very important) etc... I'm actually thinking about listing my 2nd spare pi on ebay just to help with the cost of my truck reapirs. I just got the one I ordered in March from RS electronics in the UK. I sold my last one for $110 buy it now with free shipping and it sold within 12 hours. Looks like people are still getting that kind of money for them so I may list it.

Sorry to get off topic...

Rick

Sorry to get off topic...

It's ok Rick, my threads tend to get multitopical :-)

I "ordered" my Rasberry Pi through Newark.

I was on their watch list and they just notified me the Pi would be available in August if I ordered now. So we shall see when I actually receive it.

$35.00

Ralph

One of the reasons I got a pi was to toy around with Linux. I've been 99.9% Windows for a long time. I have a Mac Mini, but honestly I haven't turned it on in a couple of months. Windows just works and works well for me. Is it a bloated OS? Sure it is, but if Linux or Mac OS supported the amount of hardware out of the box that Windows does, they'd be bloated too. Anyway... the pi should make a nice little linux project. Designed to run linux so it should not have hardware issues like I've had in the past.

Well now Windows 7 decided to not be able to find any of my Prolific ports (I some time have three Nerdkit USB cables working).

So I decided to go ahead and install Ubuntu 12.04.

What a trip that has been.

I am on my third install.

I do not get a dual boot.

I think the key is to not just take the defaults and let the Ubuntu installer to the install.

Rather it appears I have to instruct it on where to put the Linux instal and how to set the MBR (Master Boot Record).

It is the MBR that is not getting set on the previous installs.

Of course first thing Windows 7 refused to see my DVD drives as DVD burners so I had to use my wife's computer. Apparently Windows 7 doesn't not like/recognize anything more than two year sold.

So I am doing my third install "hopefully" this time will do it.

I even purchased EasyBCD to edit the MBR but the Linux install still can not be located.

Ralph

The third try did it, I went into the something else section when setting the partion size and selected the C: (sda1) drive for the MBR and the backed out and chose the default install and now I have the Boot Menu.

Now to learn how to setup Makefile and to use the USB devices.

Ralph