I’m sorry. I have no car and must use public transit, in Montréal, and the REM is a PPP that will end up costing a lot more to the public than if the public just paid directly for it.

There’s an economist that just published a new article about this, in French, named ‘the bad financing deal of the REM’.

He estimates that we could have saved as much as nearly 10 billion if the government financed the thing itself.

But no, the public has to pay royalties, doesn’t own the infra, and can’t compete with it.

It’s a bad deal.

Ahem. Konformists.

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Back in the early 90ies I would sometimes find smashed cassettes on the ground with the tape floating in the wind, while coming back from school. I’d grab the tape and splice it into another cassette so that I could hear what was on it.

I’ve never found anything more than boring music but the act of “repairing” the tape made me feel like a spy.

It’s nice to dream about investments and trains that don’t exist yet but unfortunately nothing is going to get better for actual VIA services.

I live without a car, have to use trains, and current services are either lacking or overpriced. People without cars using trains and coaches are watching all other intercity options slowly whittle down while everyone else is excited by a shiny brand new investment project that won’t move people before at the very least half a decade.

It would be an exciting project if there was a greater transit plan coming with it, like the revival or investment in regional lines. But sine it’s “just” one line, in PPP, while everything else seems to be ignored, it’s difficult to be enthusiastic about this.

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Ugh. That reminds me of the Microsoft admin fanboys where I worked, dissing Linux because its all command lines, while saying that MS inventing PowerShell was a stroke of genius making their lives easier.

I made the “reverse” deal with myself. I’m very curious so I thought I would stay alive and see how the world fucks itself up throughout the years. So far I’m not disappointed. I always think extreme capitalism can’t get worse, but yet, it does. During the pandemic I thought that surely this would at least “wake some people up”, in part. But no. People sleeping and dying in the cold streets. People that can’t eat. Poverty being criminalized. People cheering authoritarianism and genocide. We kill and let people die for the imaginary value of a currency stored in computers. It’s quite a show if you’re a cynical bastard waiting for the bubble to pop, even if it probably never will.

I’m afraid I’ve been using Linux for so long that I’m not very knowledgeable about backup software for Windows. But I’ve been using Duplicati for a single Windows computer for years, and it’s apparently also running on Linux. I never tried on Linux though, so don’t take my words for cash.

There’s also Duplicity, but it’s command line and will probably require installing the Windows Subsystem for Linux. There’s also Bacula but it’s mostly for businesses. This Wikipedia page may know more than me.

On Linux, Deja Dup acts as a graphical interface for Duplicity, is easy, and is the default for GNOME and Cinnamon. Compatible with Duplicity but as mentioned, it’s complicated for Windows.

However I think those are “too complicated” (I prefer raw files instead of archives) and for Linux I’ve been using rsync with a job scheduler (cron) for years. It’s technically not a backup solution in itself but many backup software, like those mentioned, use rsync in some form anyway. Unfortunately it does not work on Windows. My strategy is to use rsync to copy my important files to an older HDD, then the very important files are also sent on an online drive.

The TLDR would be to give Duplicati a try if you really want a backup solution that is cross platform and graphical. Otherwise, there’s nothing more certain than making copies yourself.

I guess I don’t need to remind you to be careful. Take your time. Try restoring to be sure it works. Good luck!

I have created directories of my own in several odd locations which I cannot recall but they also contain some critical files.

O_o If those files are critical, they should be backed up in multiple locations. But if you cannot recall, are those files really critical? Regardless, one day a drive will fail and those files will be lost. Critical data should be backed up in multiple locations.

I only have a single NVMe SSD installed that is almost out of space so I cannot dualboot

How do you intend to switch to Linux without available disk space? It is possible to install and boot Linux from an external drive but performance will obviously suffer. But any way you get Linux running, if it’s on the same computer and if your Windows drives are not encrypted, you should have access to them from Linux. There is no need to copy them or move them if Linux is on another drive but on the same computer. Simply installing Linux will not risk the data, as long as you don’t format the wrong partition. You can leave it there and probably access it from Linux to do what you want with it.

I can make use of an external HDD during the transfer.

Why not backup the critical data on an external HDD?

Please don’t tell me I have to copy and paste all files by hand because given the criticality of the stored data I would rather stay in Windows than risking data loss.

Erm, how do you proceed when you change your computer with Windows? Do you use specialized software to “migrate” your data for you? And if you want an automatic way to do it, how would you ensure the automatic way did it correctly? If this is what stops you from migrating, maybe it’s preferable to keep things as they are for you?! Maybe try a live USB drive environment instead of installing?!

In any way, seeing your other replies, I can only strongly encourage you to make proper backups as this may one day save your critical data, and also facilitate any future PC or OS migration.

I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful or positive but if you made a mess and want to make sure you don’t lose anything, you may want to start by cleaning up, know what you have, where it is, and have it in multiple locations. Then you can start thinking about migrating without worrying about the data.

Don’t forget to add some claims about weapons of mass destruction to help the case.

Seeing a metalhead in the snow reminds me of this gem: The Mighty Gates Of The Couloir Bonaventure

Gul Dukat did nothing wrong.

And then the twelve colonies are destroyed in a surprise attack.

Only members of the Inner Party can turn it off.

Benziiiiiin. Gib mir Benziiiiiin!

It can’t hurt to know this but to me PS is not intuitive, looks like SomeLongString-ActingLikeA-Command, and I avoid it as much as using Windows in the first place, unless absolutely necessary.

For a moment I thought that ‘commandName -’ was some PowerShell stuff.

Genuine. I still wonder if I pronounced it correctly every time I use the word.

Also when someone you know uses Windows 11.