Australian PC User contributing editor
USerOS Extreme 9.04 – out now on the October 2009 issue of PC User
Well, it’s time has now arrived. UserOS Extreme 9.04 is now available on the cover disc of the October 2009 issue of PC User. Subscribers appear to have begun receiving their copies today while it is offically meant to go on sale at newsagencies next Wednesday (although likely to be before then).
I won’t go into it in detail but UserOS Extreme 9.04 is our most complex and detailed Linux operating systems to date. It’s a 1GB ISO image – suitable for DVD drives – but we’ve also given you all the software required to install it on a 1GB or larger USB flash drive. Provided the PC you wish to install it onto can boot from USB flash drives, you should have no trouble installing it.
We’ve provided our own software called PC User Linux USB Installer that does the job and gets the OS onto your flash drive and even makes it bootable for you.
We’ve based the OS on Ubuntu 9.04 however rather than strip back an existing Ubuntu 9.04 distro, we’ve built this one from the ground up, giving us much greater control on how the OS looks and feels. It uses the Xfce desktop environment and runs happily inside 256MB of memory.
In fact, over the last few weeks I’ve used “Extreme” to record the Ashes cricket (although I sort of wish I hadn’t last week…) off free-to-air TV using just a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 based desktop PC. So you don’t need anything fancy to get value from this operating system.
The OS is loaded to the back teeth with office, desktop publishing, multimedia and lots of extra goodies – so if you haven’t yet tried a Linux operating system and you’ve got a spare PC or notebook gathering dust, here’s a good reason to get it running again.
UserOS Extreme 9.04 is exclusively found on the October 2009 issue of PC User magazine.
Similar Posts:
- UserOS Extreme 9.04 – coming to October 2009 PC User
- PC User October 2010 issue – UserOS Select 10.04
- Install UserOS Netbook 8.10 Beta or Ubuntu onto a USB flash drive
- UserOS Ultra 9.10 – out next week in PC User April 2010 issue
- UserOS Extreme 9.04 – the ulti…
- UserOS Home Server – why it’s different
- New UserOS column – starting May 2010 issue of Australian PC User
- Why Linux has come of age
- Introducing UserOS Home Server 8.04
- Coming up – February 2010 issue of PC User
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Darren Yates on August 28, 2009 at 5:39 pm, and is filed under Operating systems, PC User - what's coming up, PC User software. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
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about 1 year ago
Hi Darren
My latest issue of PC User arrived today and I was keen to try User Os 9.04 on a Virtual Machine.
I’m following your instructions and video tutorial and have tried installing it on Windows 7 and Windows Xp but have a problem running the VM. It appears to create fine but will not run.
[VM run completed]
[Starting requested VM...]
The system cannot find the path specified.
[VM run completed]
Any ideas why I keep getting the cannot find path error?
Regards
Sean
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
September 1st, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Sean,
Have you installed VMware Player? It’s on the cover disc. You need to install that before the VM will actually work.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
about 1 year ago
Hi Darren,
Why no 64bit version?
Regards
Lance
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
September 4th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I thought we were doing pretty well getting the 32-bit version out! Seriously, putting together one version is tough enough, doing two would have meant considerably more time. The other issue is that as most users will be trying this out on older hardware, a 64-bit version isn’t likely to of as much value. In the end, we had to put our resources where they are best utilised.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
Mark Shaw Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 4:30 am
hey darren, i have a quick question, what is the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit linux, i know there is a huge difference with win7 32bit and win7 64 bit, but it cant be a huge difference, i wouldnt expect 64 bit linux to take 5-8 gig of hdd space more than its 32bit counterpart of another gig of ram is needed to get it breathing, but i do expect a small difference
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 6:14 am
The differences should simply be in the ability to address more memory and take advantage of 64-bit micro-code in supporting CPUs. In practise, 64-bit OSs open apps faster and may give you a nudge in terms of application speed but it’s not a silver bullet for older, slower PCs.
Cheers,
Darren.
about 1 year ago
Hi Darren,
Will this replace and or do the same things as “User OS Home Server 8.04″ like do backups of pcs on a network, or is there somthing else in the pipe line for that?
Thanks
Regards Ian
Reply
about 12 months ago
Hi Darren,
About time I thanked you for all the great advice and software you have presented over the years.Just dual booted the UserOS Extreme 9.04 with Win XP.It worked without a problem,picked up all my peripherals and wifi.
I have a Kogan Angora Pro with gOS and look forward to your next netbook OS.
Thanks again
Tony B
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
September 12th, 2009 at 10:18 am
No worries, Tony. Glad to hear your Extreme 9.04 install all went well.
Reply
about 11 months ago
Hey all,
I’m a Windows man, from DOS 4. onwards.
Never thought of trying other OS’s until recently. Must be an omen….lol
Have a fully corrupted XP Pro system, no recovery, no OEM disc, no way to fix other than buy XP again.
I am willing to try your new Extreme 9.04 OS until win7 gets here at least.
I need to verify clean install procedure.
Fdisk, Format, Install ???
And drivers for your system? same as WinXP?
(to suit Asus Pro50RL, Pent T2390, 2Gb RAM)
Thanx guys.
Dave
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
September 19th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
You should be able to do this from the install procedure. UserOS Extreme 9.04 uses the Ubuntu install mechanism so when you get to the bit about where to install the OS, select the whole drive. This will automatically reformat your hard drive and erase everything from it (Windows XP, your files, the lot). It will then install 9.04 onto the drive. You shouldn’t need to worry about fdisk or anything like that.
But again, be warned – doing this will completely erase the hard drive and everything on it will be gone. If you need stuff on that Windows XP Pro system, you’ll need to find a way to get it off first before installing UserOS Extreme 9.04.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
Dave Reply:
September 19th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Thankyou heaps Darren,
Everything is corrupt, so I won’t be salvaging anything.
I’ll let you know how I go.
Thnx again
Dave
Reply
Dave Reply:
September 19th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Oops,
And the drivers?
Dave
Darren Yates Reply:
September 21st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Well, the drivers for most generic stuff will be there – but I can’t guarantee it’ll have everything.
You should find that most Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and wire Ethernet stuff works on the desktop, might be a bit different for notebooks but I suggest you use the trial mode first to see how it goes before trying a full install.
Cheers,
Darren.
about 11 months ago
Hi Darren,
I have installed 9.04 alongside my XP. I have a “USB DVB-T” TV Stick which is running a RTL2831U Chipset. There is plenty of forum chat on this chipset, but I can’t work out how to install this so that MeTV and MythTV can pick it up. How do I do this??? I am fairly new to Linux and this is driving me crazy!!!
Cheers,
Stan.
Reply
Stan Reply:
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Hi Darren,
Disregard the above comment. I have removed the USB Tv Stick as it wasn’t working properly on XP. I have since installed a LEADTEK DTV1800 H. It has a Conexant 2388x+INtel WJCE6353 Chipset.
I was hoping that 9.04 would pick it up, but MeTv doesn’t recognise it at all… I can’t get MythTV to load either??? Just a blank panel for either front or backend!!!
Thanks again.
Stan.
Reply
about 11 months ago
Hi Darren, like the first comment above I’m able to create the virtual machine. However, when I then click on the start virtual machine button vm player starts, thinks & eventually tells me it can’t find a bootable device. I’m pretty sure I have latest version of vm player and I’ve tried using the iso image from the cover cd & off my hdd. I had no trouble creating a windows 7 vm so I’m at a loss. any ideas? cheers, bruce
Reply
Mark Shaw Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 1:28 am
bruce, i am not darren yates but i can tell you what might be wrong with your vmware virtual machine, it happened to me a few times when i mounted 4-5 iso files at once. your problem could be this, are you putting the actual dvd disk into the drive and trying to boot from there, the software will ‘think’ that you have inserted the boot media and it doesnt find any bootable files, so thats why it sends the message about bootable devices, do you have more than 1 disk drive on your computer (assuming you have a desktop system) it will also think about scanning the one with the one that has the earliest letter ie( your disk is in drive f instead of drive d or drive e, also assuming you have a an extra hdd or there is another partition on your pc) i recommend you save the iso file to your documents (my documents folder in xp) and when your vm is going to load, go to the settings and see the ‘bootable’ device. hopefully this makes sense and helps you with your problem with vmware.
Reply
about 11 months ago
Same question!
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Sorry, Ian – I thought I’d answered this one.
They’ll be something else in the pipeline but not until next year.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
about 11 months ago
PC User User OS Extreme 9.04’s fantastic. just one thing though, PC User Rockpod 2009, just looking to know, in the near future are you gonna add something like a FLAC Lossless codec into it?
also what’s on the roadmap for the next UserOS when the Karmic Koala of Ubuntu 9.10 hits the mirrors?
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 am
Plenty is happening on both fronts.
As for RockPod and FLAC encoding, wait for the January 2010 issue (out December 4).
On the Karmic Koala front, the next version will be UserOS Ultra 9.10.
I’ve been promising this for a while but barring something out of left-field, we’ve locked into making the next version of Ultra happen. We’ve been waiting for the Koala to hit beta before we start development.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
about 11 months ago
Hi Darren,
i am having trouble finding the linux usb installer & the vmware player on the cover disc
am I missing something
regards ,
Max
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:14 am
Hi Max,
No, they’re there – look under “tutorials/featured/PC UserOS Exterme”. Unfortunately, our CD developer put in a spelling mistake free-of-charge so it has to be “Exterme”.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
about 11 months ago
Hi Darren,
Does the USB utility install the actual OS onto the flash drive (As I want to use it as a portable OS on my 16gb) or just the Install/LiveCD version?
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Just the Install/LiveCD – it’s designed to enable the OS to be installed on netbooks or PCs without an optical drive.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
about 8 months ago
Hi,
I have installed 9.04 and all is nearly ok. I am able to change the screen resolution but when I log out and back in the resolution defaults back to 800×600. I have noticed that when I change the resolution there is no option to change the screen refresh rate. It is stuck on 0. I have installed 9.04 with the virtual machine on a desktop computer.
Reply
about 8 months ago
Thank you for introducing me to linux. I have been using your UserOSExtreme exclusively on my laptop since you released it. It has been a great experience.
I have just upgraded to 9.1 Xubuntu clean install and there are two things I really miss from your distribution.
Having the taskbar like windows and the login screen.
Can you tell me how to do that please.
Reply
about 5 months ago
hey darren, i have a question about useros extreme, where are the kernal files held because i got the vmware software loaded on my useros install and now it is asking me for the location of the kernal files and i have no idea where they are. if you could reply asap, that would be highly appreciated. also i have done a google search or two to find out how to install .deb files and .bundle files
.deb files are like this
make a copy of the deb file in your tmp directory of useros
open up terminal
run the terminal line “cd /tmp”
hit return
then run this terminal command “sudo dpkg -i package.deb”
substitute package for the name of your deb file
.bundle files are different,
they are like this
open up terminal
run the terminal line “chmod +x ~/Desktop/*bundle”
that makes the bundle file executeable
now run this terminal line “sudo ~/Desktop/*bundle”
that will install the bundle file.
Reply
Mark Shaw Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 1:05 pm
hey darren, i just found out how to get vmware working with useros extreme 9.04. i needed to boot into the older kernal and when i finally ran vmware, it worked. also, is it possible for you to release the linux version to your software on the upcoming pc user cover disks or on your website, it would be greatly appreciated and i would love to run pc user perfect pc 2.0beta on my useros system and diskjockey. i dont know the linux equivilant and i have only used diskjockey to mount my iso files.
thanks
mark
Reply
about 5 months ago
hey darren, i have already asked this question but it doesnt hurt to post it again. anyway my question is this, is it possible for you to release the linux version of the pcuser software onto the cover disks in the following months. i would love to use my favourite pcuser software in useros but i dont like to use ‘wine’ it just doesnt feel right
it would be greatly appreciated if you do
thank you, mark shaw
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
April 2nd, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Mark, I can’t make any promises. It takes a fair amount of time developing just for Windows, let alone throwing in Linux as well.
That said, I’m hoping to improve the situation in the next couple of months.
I’ll let you know how I go.
Cheers,
Darren.
Reply
Mark Shaw Reply:
April 3rd, 2010 at 1:04 am
its ok if you can’t do the software instantly or at all. i don’t really mind, but if you do will it run from the first useros system you did, i am thinking about the people who have it installed on their system and would like to use it as well.
thanks for getting back fairly quickly.
thanks, Mark Shaw
Reply
Darren Yates Reply:
April 3rd, 2010 at 6:45 am
Yep, any Linux versions of PC User software we release will work on all versions of UserOS operating systems, including the original UserOS Ultra 7.10.
Cheers,
Darren.