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Driving me mad without a driver — 14 Comments

  1. How about a drop of ‘Wine’ and forget all that Windows OS stuff (esp W8!) Whatever induced Microsoft to inflict that on the human race is beyond all comprehension.

    Alternatively, and this could be a bit of an ‘aaargh’ moment, start afresh and install Windows first, Mint second. It’s only a bit of a guess on my part and not sure if relevant to the driver issue, but most of the online stuff seems to follow this sequence? Don’t hold me to it though!

    BTW, switched to Cinnamon a few months ago, and a happy camper since 🙂

    • Wine, or even VirtualBox would work to a degree, but unfortunately the programmes I want to run usually require direct access to the hardware.

      I have tried installing Windows 7 but it keeps crapping out with that Drivers Required shit. The only drivers I can find are for W8 which is a pain. Time to delve into the Deep Web to find myself a copy of Windows 8? God how I hate Microsoft!

  2. After three hard drive deaths within a couple of days of each other I finally gave up completely on Windows of any variety and I am delighted to say I haven’t missed any of its farting around and surprisingly not a one of those ‘windows only’ programs I used to believe were vital to life.

    Linux Mint Cinnamon just plain works…agree with you about Ubuntu…always promising but fails to deliver…oddly runs perfectly if a tad slowly from a USB stick though!

  3. Your last comment has my empathy:- “I hate computers.” Let’s face it, the real world is outside the computer screen and outside the television gogglebox. Get yourself a licensed shotgun, or borrow Farmer Mulligan’s up the glen, take aim, fire and blast the computer and TV to hells angels. Then start reading that American high school textbook called 100 Best Books. Sip red wine and puff on a cheroot to help the literary concentration. That’s real living.

  4. Hah, you’re lucky! At least you understand the question, even if you haven’t the immediate answer. My computer engineering graduate son got me using Ubuntu when Windows XP became obsolete and then moved up the country – now every time something goes wrong I have to phone him and he talks about ‘grub’ and ‘sudo’ and even gnomes.

  5. This seems to be a chronic problem with Acer Aspires and not just new ones. Folks who have owned one that came with W7 pre-installed or even Vista would try to install/re-install W7 onto them and get the same error whether the iso was burned to a DVD or written to a thumb drive (Note: W7 install media written to a thumb drive will not work in a USB 3 slot. Only USB 2).

    Some folks on the MS and Acer forums had luck by downloading a new Windows 7 SP1, 64-bit iso (English version) and burning a new DVD. There’s something about the installers on some past Windows 7 ISOs that refuse to work on Acers by what I can find out.

    Here’s the link to the Windows 7 iso downloads (links are in the second comment down):

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/cannot-find-digital-river-download-site/66a8439b-0d16-4b70-92f7-1c8486a46ebf

    Just in case it helps.

    Of course, if this is successful, you’ll have to re-install Grub 2 from a Linux MInt live session, yes? 😉

  6. Right!

    The latest update.

    I finally got pissed off with it and ran it through an MRI scanner. That wiped the hard disk [and I managed to find most of the bits after the explosion].

    It is now working.

    It won’t load Windows 7 [you’re right there KirkM!] so I loaded Windows 8 with Classic Shell on one side of the disk, and Linux Mint on the other side.

    It works perfectly but now of course I am stuck with downloading all the drivers that Windows [fucking Windows] needs and reinstalling all my software.

    How come Windows needs a clatter of special drivers but Linux doesn’t?

    • How come Windows needs a clatter of special drivers but Linux doesn’t?

      Basically because what open source drivers that are not actually part of the Linux kernel itself are downloaded and installed from a distro’s repositories during installation. In most cases, these open source drivers for audio, wireless, GPUs, etc will get you by until you have the time to install any proprietary drivers you want (also available in the repositories) and the more popular Linux distros have a user-friendly GUI to semi-automate the process. A few distros, like Manjaro, actually have an option in the Live session boot screen to install all proprietary (non-free) drivers for the live session instead of just using the open source (free) versions which are then automatically carried over during the actual installation.

      Windows has no such thing as repositories as you know. It only has what’s available on Microsoft’s server (the same one that Windows Update uses I believe) to draw from and compared to say, the repositories available to Linux Mint–that ain’t much.

      That doesn’t mean certain popular hardware won’t have a basic driver automatically installed by Windows (like HP printers for example) but most hardware drivers have to be obtained from the hardware manufacturer itself.

      • Basically because what open source drivers…

        Should read:

        “Basically because whatever open source drivers…”

        Me and my proof reading…or lack thereof.

      • So why can’t Windows work in the same way? They seem to go out of their way to make things as awkward as possible!

        • Heh, it’s a whole different way of doing things. Since the world of Linux distro software, with only a minuscule amount of exceptions, is entirely based upon open source software (free, as in beer), then distribution repositories are the perfect solution.

          • Ack! (dirty words and nasty phrases…mumble…mumble). I fat fingered the damn keyboard and posted the comment before I was finished.

            Suffice it to say…

            Repositories work for Linux distros because, and with only a very few exceptions, the software for Linux is all open sourced and free of charge so repositories are the answer to (controlled, QA’d and vetted) package management. Plus the mostly-not-understandable mindset of the uncountable number of people who develop this open sourced software. Strangely enough, they spend their hours developing this software because they actually love to do it.

            Huh, go figure.

            In the case of Windows however, everything is (mostly) profit driven and closed sourced. Even the developers of free ware, drivers and such that don’t cost anything probably wouldn’t be willing to upload these no cost drivers and programs to a Windows repository because it takes away hits and views on their own respective websites which are usually loaded with ads that make them pocket change and, in the case of drivers, give them a chance to pitch their own hardware.

            Of course, the latter about Windows is more my own opinion based on my past experience. And I’m getting the idea that you already know all this stuff and you just know I’m a wordy bastard that can’t resist the questions you’re posing.

            Oh, and you can ditch that first abortive comment of mine.

  7. Every Win7 installation disc and ISO image contains a small file called ‘eicfg’ and by using a little tool to remove this file from the ISO before burning to a disc, this will create a universal installation where you are able to choose which flavour of Win7 you want to install – Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate – x86 or x64. However you do need a product key specific to the flavour that you are installing.

    With dual boot installations I have always found it easier to install Windows first, then Linux, and disable grub. Instead I use EasyBCD running on the Windows side for the boot menu. On my machine (ASUS), grub tends to cause problems when it comes to booting Win7 after Linux.

    • My problem with W7 was that it just shut up shop at the beginning of the install – something to do with CD drivers or something. Leastwise I managed to install W8 without any problems and promptly dumped a free little programme called Classic Shell on top of it. It now looks and feels like Windows 7 without that horrendous slidey tile shit.

      I so far haven’t had any problems with grub though I may experiment with EasyBCD [I have used it before – it’s a neat yoke].

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