{"id":758,"date":"2017-01-14T23:58:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T22:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harsmann.com\/blog\/?p=758"},"modified":"2017-01-17T00:10:33","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T23:10:33","slug":"steam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/2017\/01\/steam\/","title":{"rendered":"Steam Incident leaves No One Steaming"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I set out installing SteamOS<\/a> on my desktop computer <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. That turned out instructive and satisfying, though not in the way first intended.<\/p>\n

My desktop is a dualboot system running Windows and Linux on separate SSDs, with an extra hard drives for storage, and while I use Windows as my daily driver (even using virtualization t\u00b4when I need Linux for work or education purposes), there are enough situations where being able to boot into another operating system is useful. Linux Mint is my distribution of choice and since I\u00a0had v17 installed and wanted to upgrade to version 18 anyway it was not a big issue to use replace it with another distribution as experiment.<\/p>\n

So I went ahead – downloaded the SteamOS installer and loaded it unto a USB stick and then shutdown the PC to do what one should always do when installing a new OS: Disconnect all hard disks except the installation target. After this basic precaution it was all a matter of opening the bootmenu, select USB and follow the instructions inside the installer. Straightforward, though a bit quirky compared to the installers of distributions like Mint or Fedora, but SteamOS is in beta and probably also more intended for products like Valve’s own Steambox than DIY projects like mine. Still, I made it through and up with one running Steam machine.<\/p>\n

That’s\u00a0where trouble started, because I couldn’t get SteamOS\u00a0to place nice with my usual dual-boot setup (otherwise easily managed with EasyBCD<\/a>).\u00a0However, since SteamOS installs it self in EFI mode, it wouldn’t play nice and frustrating troubleshooting followed. it was also time for breakfast and for me to close the box, and\u00a0let it be reminder to not do things on an empty stomach that at this time I tried a fresh installation of SteamOS with all drives connected. I carefully selected the right drive for installation and once more SteamOs installed. However, gone was my Windows installation too. Initially I suspected a corrupted bootloader and tried out the repair utilities on my Windows installation disk, but to no prevail and the disk appeared to be dead (it has happened to an SSD of mine before, so OK, stuff happens).\u00a0My last troubleshooting step was to boot\u00a0into Linux from a live DVD and that’s when I saw it and understood. Regardless\u00a0how careful I was when I selected which disk to install on, the SteamOS installer had still applied the same partition scheme to my Windows disk as on my Linux disk, but without installing.\u00a0Thankfully not to my data disks though, although given that I have a double cloud backup of my data,\u00a0the worst thing would have been waiting for data to be downloaded and restored.<\/p>\n

Reinstalling Windows\u00a0then took only a\u00a0couple of hours until I was up and running with most of my standard software (how online installation files and fast internet changes things! )<\/p>\n

Looking back, on the one hand side I feel a bit silly for\u00a0not taking the basic precaution of disconnecting all hard drives before installing a new\u00a0OS; however, I am almost cheerful (perhaps even smug) to see\u00a0how having proper backup would leave me safe in a not-quite worst case scenario, and how\u00a0my basic rules of keeping OS and data on separate disks kept me safe (I have broken that rule once in 23 years,\u00a0which is also the number of times a system disk has\u00a0failed – coincidence? Murphy says “no”)<\/p>\n

I probably got rid of a few unnecessary applications at the same time,got my start menu sorted and upgraded\u00a0to Mint 18 as planned anyway, so\u00a0no issue there. I also got to know EFI and I understand why some communities are concerned about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, my wife always tells me that reinstalling an OS once in a while seems to make me happy. Having written this I believe she is right. Of course she is…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I set out installing SteamOS on my desktop computer . That turned out instructive and satisfying, though not in the way first intended. My desktop is a dualboot system running Windows and Linux on separate SSDs, with an extra hard drives for storage, and while I use Windows as my daily driver (even … Continue reading Steam Incident leaves No One Steaming<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[39,12,38,5],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-linux","tag-pc","tag-steamos","tag-windows"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170115-Rosenborg-Castle.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5WBL8-steam","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}