Linux

[Tsubashi]

Waaaaaah! My friend is just some bytes of data I could stick and forget about in that Home directory I hardly ever use.... ;^___^;

Be of good comfort, senpai! I use home directories quite often (obviously ) plus I take daily trips out to my servers! Besides which, I pop up enough that it's too hard to forget about me entirely. Plus, I like to think of them being 'glorified bytes' instead of just 'some bytes'
Then again, I may be a bit biased ^.^
Just make sure to avoid .Tarbombs, they scatter data all over the place! ^o^'
*Grabs broom, just in case*

BTW, funny story about Beryl,...

I laugh at how true it is. I must say, though, that once we resolved the CD issues, Sazaki-chan has given me the least trouble of all.
Speaking of trouble with Beryl, I've had a few people ask about some problems they have been having. They were quite vague on the details, but apparently, when trying to start Beryl, the system freezes, and then returns to the login screen. I haven't encountered the problem myself, so I was wondering if anyone else had any ideas.
I do know that it is not an issue with the CD, or requirements, but I'm not sure what it is ^.^
It's a bit embarrassing, actually ^^'

[C-Chan]

Yep, I get that too during the LiveCDs on my newer systems.  Just good ol' fashioned video driver incompatibility, courtesy mostly of ATI more so than Nvidia.  -.-;

PCLOS defaults to generic drivers, so unless you're lucky enough to have full compatibility from the get-go, you still have to download specific drivers from either Synaptic or the proprietary websites in order to make sure your card works to its fullest (including 3D acceleration):

http://docs.mypclinuxos.com/Compatible_video_cards

However, while proprietary drivers do give you the fullest possible experience, once in a while they can be a huge pain in the a$$ since they are still closed source (even ATI's).  And unfortunately, I've yet to figure out how to get the open source Xorg drivers to work (because Xubuntu uses these, I'm able to use Beryl even though the proprietary ATI fglrx driver refuses to work).

[Xeon]

Well yeah, clearing that up helps when there's no location label.... ^^;
But now you caught me at a disadvantage, cause even though I got tons of Yuan, I only have 15 Ringgit.... -.-; ..and only a few coins. I feel like burying my head in shame. -_____-

No need to bury your head in shame ^__^.i am surprised that you even knew MYR=RM (since malaysia aint the most popular state on the block* that everytime people mention asia they think japanese or koreans and never malAySIA...... well hardly XD)

Suiseiseki-sama Eating Pocky Within a Tiberium Field

im also surprised you knew it was tiberium ^__^.

BTW, what method did you end up using to port over Photoshop? ^__^
If it's Wine, let me know (I actually haven't used it yet, to be honest... ^.^').

Yes i did use wine even though i didn't knew what the heck i was  doing....^__^

As for Photoshop not wanting to accept your license, is it CS3 by any chance? Personally I've always stuck with Photoshop 6.0, since none of the later releases impressed me (and at times, actually deterred me.... T__T). But don't give up,.. when there's a will there's a way.... ^___^
Still,.. with Adobe's recent M$-like behavior, it's no wonder a lot of people succumb to the "black arts".... -__-
I guess that's the reason I'm trying to ween myself off of Photoshop and onto free alternatives like GIMP and Krita. Better free than less-than-legal.... ^^;

No its still cs2 to lazy to update XD,i would use gimp but im to used to photoshop so nayyyy....so i have to use photoshop on vista(which i think is getting suspicious of my affair with linux, because she seems to less cooperate.....)

Now i am off.. I  be back in approxximetly 8 hours and 30 minute
SOooo Jaien my fwens jaien.....

[C-Chan]

No need to bury your head in shame ^__^.i am surprised that you even knew MYR=RM (since malaysia aint the most popular state on the block* that everytime people mention asia they think japanese or koreans and never malAySIA...... well hardly XD)

Fufu... rest-assured that my geography and vexillology skills are slightly better than average around here.  Besides that, my brother's former girlfriend was Laotian, and there's nothing like trying to sing karaoke in Lao and eating Pho on the side to promote cross-cultural exchange.... (they also had some China Doll songs, so I got to practice some Thai too... ^.^)



Besides that, I'm also a coin collector, so I'm required BY LAW [of the numismatic creed] to know the currency of every country, from Isle of Man to Myanmar to the Republic of Narau (although they only made commemorative ones).  ^^

im also surprised you knew it was tiberium ^__^.

That's kinda unfair of me since I just finished beating all 3 campaigns of Tiberium Wars.  The Scrin are very cool, but until they're story is fleshed out further, I'm still first and foremost a Nod fan.  ^.^'

Yes i did use wine even though i didn't knew what the heck i was doing....^__^

Well if you can hook up computer security and all, I'm sure you have the head to figure that stuff out eventually.  ^__^
Either way, whether you stick with compatability layers or virtual machines, I'm proud of ya!  ^v^

No its still cs2 to lazy to update XD,i would use gimp but im to used to photoshop so nayyyy....so i have to use photoshop on vista(which i think is getting suspicious of my affair with linux, because she seems to less cooperate.....)

Heck no, don't update to CS3.  That one I hear is worse in some respects....  -.-;
(then again, don't forget I'm the one who won't budge away from 6.0... ^^;)

It's also a bit unfair on my part as well since I rarely use Photoshop to begin with, given that I've turned away from raster graphics straight to vector graphics (e.g., Inkscape or in Adobe's case, Illustrator).  

However, if the problem with Photoshop persists, then I would recommend trying out a virtualization machine solution.  You should have VMWare player/server, VirtualBox and/or QEMU free to install, and what this does is create a fake computer inside your Linux where you can install any compatible OS (Windows XP, 2K, ME, other Linuces, sometimes even Macs).  Naturally, once the OS is installed, you can then install any software onto it (as long as it doesn't surpass the HD space you allotted to this fake computer).  

As a fairly recent example, this fellow here has XP running inside his Ubuntu install, and just look at all the apps he already has set up in there.... ^__^;

http://ostan-collections.net/post-32310.html#32310

And you might want to investigate this further, cause,... if you're running Linux within the same machine that your Vista's on, I wouldn't consider yourself crazy for thinking Vistan's jealous.  Apparently it has been confirmed that Vista doesn't LIKE to share its space with other OSes.... ^^'

[Xeon]

Sorry for the extremely late reply, Ive been busier than Paris Hilton with his daddys credit card on a shopping spree ^__^.

Fufu... rest-assured that my geography and vexillology skills are slightly better than average around here. Besides that, my brother's former girlfriend was Laotian, and there's nothing like trying to sing karaoke in Lao and eating Pho on the side to promote cross-cultural exchange.... (they also had some China Doll songs, so I got to practice some Thai too... ^.^)

Oooo so then you must know a bunch of languages :3.

That's kinda unfair of me since I just finished beating all 3 campaigns of Tiberium Wars. The Scrin are very cool, but until they're story is fleshed out further, I'm still first and foremost a Nod fan. ^.^'

Kane for the WIN!!! :3

However, if the problem with Photoshop persists, then I would recommend trying out a virtualization machine solution. You should have VMWare player/server, VirtualBox and/or QEMU free to install, and what this does is create a fake computer inside your Linux where you can install any compatible OS (Windows XP, 2K, ME, other Linuces, sometimes even Macs). Naturally, once the OS is installed, you can then install any software onto it (as long as it doesn't surpass the HD space you allotted to this fake computer).

Forgive me for being rude,but,whats the point of installing windows virtually on linux? won't it be lag (keep in mind that i havent tested this so feel free to correct me ^__^).

And you might want to investigate this further, cause,... if you're running Linux within the same machine that your Vista's on, I wouldn't consider yourself crazy for thinking Vistan's jealous. Apparently it has been confirmed that Vista doesn't LIKE to share its space with other OSes.... ^^'

Especially since on startup linux is identified as an Unknown OS ^__^"

And do you think i ll be able to install linux on a portable hard drive (although i doubt it) so i can use my OS on my friends computer?

So once again thx for the help oh giant piggy in the sky ^__^.

[C-Chan]

Giant piggy?  Fufu!  No no, I'm quite small, thank you very much.  ^^

To answer your first question, I don't know that many languages yet (still struggling with Japanese, although I can easily work with English, Spanish and some French), but I love the notion of being polylingual and certainly admire polylinguists.

To answer your third question, yes you can install most Linux distros on portable media, and take it with you anywhere that boots off portable media.  I haven't tried a full-install on portable media yet, but I have successfully tested a LiveUSB install (using Puppy Linux), and so carry around my emergency OS with me at all times.  ^___^

And to answer your second question, virtualization makes it possible to run nearly any legacy program flawlessly and without the uncertainty of emulation through compatibility layers (like Wine).  Plus VMs present an excellent environment for testing other systems (without rebooting), for porting an entire completely-intact OS to a friend's house (like you want) , and for working with potentially-malicious content (cause if your Windows is destroyed, at least it only ruins the VM image and not your entire real system... In addition, depending on the VM tool, you can run systems that normally wouldn't work on your hardware.  (e.g., a 386, PowerPC or SPARC OS running inside an AMD64....) ^__^

Speed can be a problem depending on the system (Vista and the later Mac OSX's are particularly RAM-intensive), but if your system has high-enough specs the speed hit can be negligible.  Furthermore, if you use lower hardware requirement systems, such as a stripped down XP, 2K or 98, then the performance is nearly identical to the original machine.

Bottom line is, using VMs can help keep you focused on a single productive OS.  I like having the option of booting other systems, but personally I kinda hate all that needless hopping around....  -v-

[Bella]

Yo. I just wanted to let you know I figured out how to get the skydome image to work (using your advice, C-Chan)!

[C-Chan]

WAI!!!!!!  Another legendary Bella-san Wifi Post!!!!  ^V^

*preserves specimen*

Coolness, now I bet you're navigating SAM-chan outside of earth's orbit... so to speak... ^.^

Please post again when you have a chance!  ^___^

*goes off to search for more*

[Kami-Tux]

:help: Do you know a program to learn the Hebrew alphabet with?

TIA!

[C-Chan]

*checks date*
Poor Kami-Tux, no one's helped you out yet?  @__@

Okay, let's see what I can do.... -v-

Added after 7 minutes:

What I've noticed is that, when it comes to language learning, there's very few FREE learning aids available for any system.  Naturally, that means the majority of the more useful aids are both NON-free and Windows-based, which kinda sucks no?  ^.^'

Fortunately, I've also noticed that the only viable free alternatives are web-based instead.  ^___^

And just like with Japanese, that seems to be the case with Hebrew too:

http://www.jr.co.il/hotsites/j-hebrew.htm

So like I always say,...

"It's either ONLINE... or WINE..."  ^v^

[Bella]

The good, the bad, the…WTF…? And the delicious, delicious irony.

The good: I got a flash USB drive. It **says** it holds up to 4GB.

The bad: Being all gung-ho and all, I loaded up SAM and tried using the “Install SAM” dialogue to install it onto the drive. It looked like everything went well…until it got to the part about rebooting (or whatever the hell…)
It didn’t  do it automatically, so, I rebooted. Or at least I tried : /

Anyhow, (seemingly) nothing installed, as it didn’t boot up from the drive (even when I went to BIOS settings and told K8 to boot from “external memory”) Except, on XP, it reads the drive as having (and this is where the WFT? comes into play) 2.4 GB on it. And on XP, a little SanDisk made program called launchpad pops up asking me if I want to add files, programs, explore, etc…I’m sure this is using the missing 1.6 GB.
And XP reads the flash drive as not only  being a USB device (removable disk ( F: ), but also a CDR drive
(U3 System ( E: ), on My Computer.

Now, on SAM, it reads the drive as being four external drives (with varying sizes, the “real“ 2.4 drive,  and the other three, for instance, being 1 GB, 200 MB, etc…) and one CDR drive (which I believe is the same as the E: ) drive on Windows). I cannot access any of the  â€œphantom” drives, just the 2 GB one.

I tried re-installing it (stupid me…) when I tell it to install to the “external drive”, it in fact senses two, one with too little space to be the drive, and one with waaaaay too much space (that I’m almost afraid is my HD). And no, the external HD is NOT connected.

If and when I try to install (to the flash drive), I’m tempted to pop out the HD just to be safe XD Okay I’m just kidding.

As for that delicious, delicious irony,  I have an optical USB mouse. When we bought K8, we got it, but within a few months it curiously stopped working. Nothing we could do would get it to work (even on other XP machines) so it’s been sitting at the bottom of K8’s carrying case for the last year or so.

I was cleaning the bag out when I came across it; I had the weird idea to try it with Linux (which, as we know, it sometimes not the best when it comes to hardware detection.)

And…

You guessed it…

The mouse worked! The mouse that didn’t work on every XP machine worked on SAM!

[C-Chan]

Oooh,... I haven't sprung this much into action in a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time.... ^___^

Okay,... this'll take a while to untangle, but here's goes nothing!  ^v^

*takes deeeeeeeeeeep breath*

*plunges in*

The good: I got a flash USB drive. It **says** it holds up to 4GB.....

.......

etc etc etc

.........

I cannot access any of the “phantom” drives, just the 2 GB one.

Okay, first off... con-grat-u-lat-ions!!!  ^v^
You,... like me,... got stuck with a U3 usb drive.  ^.^

*audience applauses*

See one of the problem with Windows hegemony is that is creates two things:

1) A culture of software/hardware development for a single system

and

2) A culture of convenience to cater to said culture of unitary development.

You can read a little about U3 here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3

But bottom line is that whatever obvious GENIUS thought that one up thought we (the consumers) enjoy our crapware, even on our USB flash disks.  Who cares if you paid for 2.00GB,... you WANT to forfeit at least a good 100megs of that too hold stuff like AOL... fufufu.....  ^___^
The obvious GENIUS also thought that we don't want generic flash drives,... rather we WANT our drives to open a nice "magical" wizard every time we stick it in.  And yes, we WANT that magical wizard to work only on Windows,... who cares for that pretentious Mac and smelly Linux.... -v-

Security is the carrot they dangle to use U3, but trust me,... anyone who wants to steal your stick and crack open its information has more than enough tools on disposal to bypass that.

I for one find U3 extremely annoying, both for Linux AND Mac ANNNNNNNNNND Windows....

See....

On Mac/Linux:

The U3 launcher doesn't work so that magical wizard fails to disguise the mounting of both a USB drive AND a fake CD-ROM drive.  If you're wondering why it has to create a fake CD-ROM drive,... it's because standard USB drives can't run autorun scripts like CDs do.  ^^;

On Windows:

Oh sure it runs the autorun script and loads up the wizard....... without my consent.  And it takes a while doing so to boot... no pun intended.... -v-;
But perhaps I got spoiled by generic USB drives, cause I always expect them to just pop open in Windows Explorer upon insertion   In fairness, the Eject feature is really neat,... but seriously, on all 3 systems, "ejecting" a USB drive is only a right-click away (or in the case of a single-mouse button Mac, just drag it to the Trash).  ^^;

I also assume this U3 thing interferes with system bootup from your USB drive, since generic USB drives are detected as boot devices at startup, but the Sandisk drive does not (or rather it can, but you have to insert it in, restart, go to your BIOS settings, look at your HARD DRIVE boot order (yes, it appeared as a hard drive when I first tried this!) and then move it up so that it boots off your Sandisk before the hard drive!  And this obviously doesn't stick, as you'd have to do this all over again when you reinsert it at a later date!  @o@

*sigh*

And as for purging the U3 drive of its contents,... normally that works for some of the cheapo craplets that used to come on prototypical U3 flash drives, but sadly it won't work here... because that 100megs of space is protected by the Sandisk hardware itself!  Meaning....

The U3 stuff is fused into your USB drive....

FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!  ^V^

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Just kidding.  ^.^
Besides all the non-proprietary tools that can remove it from your drive permanently, U3, LLC has also agreed to provide an uninstallation tool in case you choose to make your drive... *rolls eyes*... "unsmart"   `v'

http://www.u3.com/uninstall/

And for this you can give thanks to all the concerned consumers who have written in (sometimes with rather colorful language) expressing dismay about this seemingly inconsiderate feature,  ^____^;

Naturally, because U3 is Windows only to begin with, the uninstaller is also Windows only.  So if you want to run it, do so on Homeko-san,... it'll work just like a firmware update of sorts and turn your USB drive back to normal again!  ^v^

Bear in mind, though, that it has to purge the entire drive to do so.  Therefore, you can either unload your SAM install somewhere safe, and copy it right back when the purge is done, or just reinstall SAM.  ^__^

Speaking of which....

Homeko is probably not reading close to the full 4.0GB (with U3 it will never read that much to begin with) because XP by default is incapable of reading Ext3 partitions (which is what most Linux distros install into).  The fact that it can read 2.4GBs at all is because SAM-chan left aside that much space as FAT32, which is actually a great idea if you intend to share files between Windows and Linux.  On the other hand, you can also install Ext3 support for XP:

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Best/ext3-on-xp-util.html

Generally support for Ext3 on XP is better than NTFS on Linux, if only because NTFS is proprietary, whereas Ext2/Ext3 is not (and is moreover far better documented)... ^.^

Now on SAM, you're seeing 4 different drives because it tries to automount all the partitions available on it.

2.4GB:  Your FAT32 partition.  Like Windows, this drive is always accessible and editable.
1.0GB:  Probably where your SAM root partition is located.  It seems odd that you can't mount it, although this might be because you don't have sufficient permissions to do so OR because it requires a mount point to view?
You could try going into Control Center and look at the drive within the "Create, delete and resize hard disk partitions menu" to see if you can alter a value to jar it back into action.  However, I think this is pointless since technically, with a fully working USB install, you won't have to use a LiveCD.  ^^'
200MB:  This is likely your swap partition if you made one.  The fact that you're seeing this probably means that your LiveCD did not use that partition for Swap.  You wouldn't see anything in swap anyway, as it's purpose is simply for virtual memory.
CDR drive:  A present from U3.  ^.^

I tried re-installing it (stupid me…) when I tell it to install to the “external drive”, it in fact senses two, one with too little space to be the drive, and one with waaaaay too much space (that I’m almost afraid is my HD). And no, the external HD is NOT connected.

Yep, that's your HD. ^___^
Well, once you remove the U3, you'll end up with a 4.0GB FAT32 partition.  That should be enough for you to reinstall SAM in.  However, after you do, I recommend using Gparted to repartition your USB drive BEFORE installing SAM, as this way you can calmly and carefully determine how much space you want to allocate to the SAM root partition (you need more than 1.0GB, unless you don't plan on installing additional software.... ^^;)

On the other hand, if you do install that Ext2/3 reader in XP, this is a moot point.  In that case, you can convert the ENTIRE drive to the Ext3 root partiton, and all its files would still be accessible from Windows.  ^___^
Feel free to add another 200MB linux-swap partition again as well, although if you value your space maybe you don't need one.  ^___^

Anyway, hope this has shed a light on what otherwise seems like a very ugly situation.  

Moral of the story,...

Shortsighted hardware is Linux' worst enemy.  ^_________^;

As for that delicious, delicious irony, I have an optical USB mouse. When we bought K8, we got it, but within a few months it curiously stopped working. Nothing we could do would get it to work (even on other XP machines) so it’s been sitting at the bottom of K8’s carrying case for the last year or so.

I was cleaning the bag out when I came across it; I had the weird idea to try it with Linux (which, as we know, it sometimes not the best when it comes to hardware detection.)

And…

You guessed it…

The mouse worked! The mouse that didn’t work on every XP machine worked on SAM!

Fufufu... yep, Linux has to a great extent done a complete 360 on hardware detection.  It is still loopy with wireless stuff, and Nvidia/ATI aren't exactly rushing to create great drivers for them (although that recent push from Dell may help).  But like before, these are all the usual issues with proprietary versus FOSS philosophies.  Despite this, thanks to the hardware work of thousands of volunteer coders, plus contributions from more sensible companies, device recognition has become surprisingly adept and efficient.  ^___^

Two recent examples for me:

1)  When I bout an Intel NIC to replace the crappy one that came with my Acer, my then Kubuntu and subsequent Linux distros have registered the card perfectly and have it running instantenously.  XP is the same way, but ONLY from VMWare/Virtualbox, where it's essentially leeching off the net connection from Linux.  By itself, XP needs the drivers that come with the CD.  Makes you wonder what all that bloat that comes with the standard CD installation is used for.  ^^;

2)  When charging my RAZR, I had to look high and low, far and wide, to get a driver for XP that would recognize my RAZR phone and charge the battery through the USB port.  And even then, if I ever accidentally disconnected the phone (or turned it off without disconnecting it), the entire system does a hard reboot!  @o@
In contrast, I remember the time when I accidentally stuck my RAZR on Xubuntu (I was too sleepy, and I thought I was pluggin in my music player) and heard that awesome little chime and the bars moving.  I don't know how and don't know where, but by GAWD it recognized my phone AND was charging its battery without so much as a fuss!  ^__^

In the words of the Great Farmer Hoggette:

"That'll do pig......... That'll do."  ^.^

[Bella]

Thanks! I'd have never found that uninstall thing...later I'll have to try installing SAM!

I could use Gparted for the USB drive? *Gosh, I know I have it around somewhere...XD*

I hope K8 can actually boot from it, but I've heard nearly all machines built after, 2001, I think, can boot from external memory (her BIOS is from 2004, is I think I'm good!)

Added after 11 hours 28 minutes:

I went onto SAM to do some reconnaissance XD

This time, it sensed the drive as a 4GB one. Good.

On the Install SAM feature, it opened>next>
What drive do you want to use, HD or USB>I chose UBS>
Do you want to format and install, use the Windows partition, custom>I chose format and install>
Which drive>hda 78 GB (K8's HD) or sda 3.8 GB

That's where I chickened out. Because,

1) Why did it ask if I wanted to use the HD or USB drive if it would give me the option later

2) Why did it sense the USB drive as 3.8 GB, when, it said it was 4.0 GB?

: ?

[C-Chan]

Chicken... bwakbwak bwak... ^v^

Haha, just kidding... ^.^

Okay, this sounds like you managed to get rid of that nasty U3.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.  ^___^

I actually wanted you to stick the USB drive in and see if it stalled the system at the beginning of the computer boot up (saying something like "Non-System Disk... etc...").  That would've been a clear indicator that the system detects your SanDisk as your average run of the mill flash drive.  But oh well, we'll just work with what we have on hand.... -v-

*keeps typing*

Added after 10 minutes:

Now then, I should've mentioned earlier that SAM already has a copy of Gparted, so you didn't have to use that separate LiveCD (in case that was what you meant earlier).  Speaking of which, the reason why you can use Gparted on ANYTHING (including Floppies) is because Linux is quite democratic and treats every single mountable,....... thing,..... as a mountable partition.  ^___^

In any event, hopefully by now you used Gparted to create partitions, or at least format everything to something you like.  If not, that's okay,... the full installation process can handle that just as well.... -v-

Now then, to your questions.... ^___^

1) Why did it ask if I wanted to use the HD or USB drive if it would give me the option later

Just i case you changed your mind.  ^v^;
Think of the USB install as kind of an afterthought feature (probably tacked on there from the Mandriva installer), hence the coding wasn't cleaned up to exclude non USB drives.  In any event, you can tell from a mile away you're installing it on the USB drive when it says 3.8GBs.  ^.^

Speaking of which....

2) Why did it sense the USB drive as 3.8 GB, when, it said it was 4.0 GB?

It said 4gigs in the Desktop, right?  Linux, like Windows, estimates file sizes -- whereas the installer may be looking at the actual bonified disk size (neither hard drives nor flash drives are rarely ever as large as their indicated size.  Even my Insignia player, also 4gbs, only registers a true size of 3.80GBs.  The best way to tell, again, is with Gparted, as it is very precise at displaying true volume sizes.  ^___^

Added after 3 minutes:

And just as an aside, I discovered two neat things about Linux lately....

1)  Using the rsync application, you can create a copy of an entire online repository onto your hard drive (makes for a  HUGE download as far as PCLOS goes), which can then be used to create your own CD/DVD repositories.  My friend whom I've given my HP-chan too has no internet access at the moment, so I know for sure that a portable repo will be an excellent resource for him (although with the hundreds of apps I preinstalled for him, he'd have a hard time coming up with something else to install.... ^^;)

and

2)  Apparently the new Compiz-Beryl hybrid, "Compiz Fusion", is going to rock the house.... ^___^


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w

[Bella]

Well, I tried it again and still nada.

I know when the install SAM dialogue closed, it said I needed to restart the partition for it to take effect...

O__o

Huh? I just let it sit there for a few minutes, until the USB drive's "running" light went off, and then made a feeble attempt to get the system to reboot. I ended up just shutting down.

In hindsight, maybe it meant unplugging the USB drive/plugging it in.

Gosh, I hope K8 can boot from a USB (In the Phoenix BIOS settings it says CD-ROM, HD, network drive, and external drive (or memory I think...something that at least sounds like though a USB port)