UNR: Ubuntu Netbook Remix to the rescue

Today, early in the morning, I received a call from my in-laws. Their Windows XP Netbook was infected with some piece of malware and the computer was no longer ‘booting’. I got my trusty ‘recovery tools’ out – several Linux based anti-virus rescue disks and an Ubuntu liveCD for recovering data if a complete reinstall was necessary.

When they arrived the ‘story’ was updated and I found out that another family member tried to ‘clean’ the system. Apparently this cleaning was what made the computer have issues booting. It would boot, but just auto-magically log the user off; even in safe mode. Apparently they had been hit by Internet Security 2010 malware; while running as an administrative user of course. The other family member tried using Malwarebytes to remove the malware, but when it completed the computer would no longer allow a user to login.

This is where things get interesting.

I loaded up the netbook with Ubuntu from a liveCD and was rescuing the data files from the computer. I was then asked what I was using. After an explanation and viewing of several Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) videos of Youtube I was asked if I could just install UNR.

I finished the install and updates and handed the computer to my in-laws. They were absolutely amazed that it had taken so little time to get a fully functional system up and running. They were completely blown away when they found out that Firefox, OpenOffice and Sodoku was already installed as well. I think they may be considering converting other computers after seeing how well UNR ran on their netbook that had been ‘sluggish’ under Windows XP.

About these ads