floppys & diskettes

[Gribouillis]

booting from an Ubuntu stick is not a piece of cake.

You may need to change the boot order in your BIOS configuration.

[DPaul]

You may need to change the boot order in your BIOS configuration.

OK, win 11 procedure is a little different, but I got Ubuntu working.
"Trial installation" option.
Managed to open a diskette.
Ubuntu sees 2 files : Volume Information and what I expected a .dbf file.
Tried simple copy of the .dbf to a HDD. It tries to do that, but then reports a "general import problem".
In "properties" it shows a complete red band across the diskette image.
I would take a print screen, but dont't know how to save that in UBUNTU.
So

[Gribouillis]

I would take a print screen, but dont't know how to save that in UBUNTU.

There is plenty of documentation about ubuntu online. Try this to get a screenshot for example.

Using the file manager, you should be able to transfer the screenshot to your windows drive or another external drive or usb stick.

Have you tried to obtain a raw image of the diskette? It could be more secure to work on such a raw image rather than on the physical diskette. Every time we use it, we may damage it more. This link looks interesting too.

[DPaul]

There is plenty of documentation about ubuntu online

Yes there is, but what the docs say is never exactly the same as the wording you find
inside the system.
However, after a while I found my way via "utilities", "disks", "floppy","check file system", "repair file system"(twice)
Lo and behold, it said "repair succesful". It recovered part of a dbf file. Maybe I will look for a more powerful tool,
to retrieve everything.
So I'll try some more.
Anyway, this exercise showed me that Ubuntu is smooth to work with,
if I had not invested in so much in you know what... I might be tempted.
thx,
Paul

[Gribouillis]

found my way via "utilities", "disks", "floppy","check file system", "repair file system"(twice)

Repairing the file system is nice but there is a risk when you work directly on the original floppy disks because you can't go back. That's why I suggested that you made raw copies first.

if I had not invested in so much in you know what... I might be tempted.

My advice is to buy a second computer with Linux on it. There are ways to buy computers online whith Ubuntu already installed. This way you are certain that there are no hardware issues. Always take a LTS version of ubuntu (long time support) such as 22.04 for example.

[DPaul]

Only for python ? Would that make sense?
Paul

[Gribouillis]

Only for python ? Would that make sense?

Once you have a linux computer, I'm pretty sure you'll find other utilizations than running Python programs. For example today's dbf files recovery has nothing to do with Python. Also you could make your computers communicate, so that it would be an extension of the first computer.

[DPaul]

I am ithinking of converting my laptop to Ubuntu.
It's an AMD with 8 cores, and I read that multiprocessing is a little better on linux.
As you know, they keep throwing huge batches of documents at me, and if I could
save only 1/10th of a second of processing time per document, that is substantial.
I'll have to do some more reading before I throw myself into the unknown...
Ubuntu for dummies, that's what I need.
thx,
Paul

[Gribouillis]

I am ithinking of converting my laptop to Ubuntu.

Don't throw away Windows until you have a good experience of Linux. You would miss your favorite Windows apps when it is too late to go back. If you don't want to buy a new laptop, you could install a dual boot first. Linux will take only a portion of your disk space and you can have the best of the two worlds. Only you cannot have both running at the same time, but you will be able to transfer files between the Linux partition and the Windows partition.

[DPaul]

OK, but I have more than 1 machine to experiment with