I have spent the past couple of days pulling my hair out, pulling hard drives in and out, and generally having a hell of a time trying to install a version of Linux. I thought I had things ready and dialed but it turns out that my laptop is getting old and beat up. It started with me clearing a 1 Tb hard drive, formatting it, putting a version of kubuntu on a memory stick, swapping hard drives, and attempting to install the OS.

Well... that did not go well. The installation hung up constantly. It was not able to get through a full install until yesterday afternoon when I finally got a 32 bit version of Kubuntu 18.04 to load up. I can not fully articulate the INSANE frustration I went through in this process. Though little did I know the worst was yet to come.

After playing around with the install for a while I went to open Steem and realized I needed my password file which is encrypted on my old windows drive. I then proceeded to swap drives once more but this time when I pressed power I got a giant resounding NOTHING!!!!!

WTF!?!?!?!

It appears that all of my swapping had managed to corrupt the mbr of my windows drive to the point it refuses to boot windows. All of my data is completely fine, except for one file. I am at a complete loss as to how to get it to unlock. I am able to access everything from my Ubuntu install but the one file being encrypted through windows is not allowing me to even copy it off the old drive.

I spent last evening in a serious pit of despair. I went to bed with this impending sense of doom that I had lost this file and my access to some of my accounts. To the point that I had dreams, which I have had only a handful that I have remembered over the last 20 years. My morning dream was one with a lot of anger and rage involved which was a direct response to the file.

One little glimmer was that I figured out the installation issue. I have 3 usb ports on my computer, 2 usb 3 and 1 usb 2. The usb 2 always has my mouse receiver plugged into it and never gets removed. The 2 usb 3 ports have shit in and out of them like a 2 dollar whore, rough and constant. In my troubleshooting pains I figured I would try plugging my memory stick into the usb 2 port to try and install...

VOILA!!!

That was the first actual install of the OS. So each subsequent install happened from the usb 2 port.

This morning I decided to try out the 64 bit version of Ubuntu 18.04. I made sure I didn’t have anything on the drive then performed the reinstall. This time it went right through. This was a super big relief for me since most all programs need 64bit architecture, like the bitshares client and Discord to name a couple. The relief of having the 64bit version installed is what I think allowed my head to relax enough to actually think.

I went digging around in my user data in both my old windows drive and the new linux drive. I managed to find the location for both of my Firefox profiles.

HOLY SHIT!!! THAT’S RIGHT!!!!

I just copied my entire profile and dumped it into the new profile in Ubuntu. I could log into Whaleshares again. My login for Steemit was back! My logins are there since the database copied over. My only problem is that the saved passwords in the new Ubuntu Firefox is not showing me any passwords in the list, yet it is filling them in on pages. It would love to figure out to get them to be visible or to de-encrypt the main db.

Next I installed Focuswriter which I use for my daily writings and my streak is up to 107 days of at least 10 minutes a day of writing. BUT I had to find my data from the old drive and get it into the correct directory on the new drive. Thankfully my periodic dinking with linux distros over the years has given me enough of a basis that I have been finding it a relatively easy to make my way around again.

In the end though I am back in control of my shit. I have a working OS that IS NOT WINDOWS!!!!!!!!

WINE RULES!!!

I am seriously digging wine and the ability to use my Windows programs. I have even found some solid programs for working with my RAW files from my Nikon to replace Photoshop. Though I may try and use PS in a VM at some point.

Yay me, I have figured this shit out and am feeling a lot more at ease. The stress of yesterday was a bit too much. I have to be more careful with how far I allow myself to fall into pits.

But here’s to a new OS experience!!!

For more information about our farm:
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce

All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.

If you find this post useful or entertaining, your support is greatly appreciated by upvoting, following, and sharing!

---

---