Official MediCat USB - A Multiboot Linux USB for PC Repair

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Jayro

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FYM "Generated it myself"? Did you train a model using your own dataset, or do you just mean you fiddled with prompts until it barfed up the right random collection of mish-mashed pixels?
Fiddled with prompts until I got a result I liked. The prompt was about 700 words or so. I also generated the pic used for the MediCat Discord server banner. It came out better than I had hoped it would.

a506bfd6a3f74ca7b8b8626cfa9bf130.jpg
 

jeffyTheHomebrewer

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Fiddled with prompts until I got a result I liked. The prompt was about 700 words or so. I also generated the pic used for the MediCat Discord server banner. It came out better than I had hoped it would.

View attachment 461565
That's disgusting. I guess I'm just going to go back to using Hiren's, until you decide to stop using gen. ai for things at least.
Maybe I seem stupid here, but I don't care. I'd rather not use things made by people that decide it's okay to use what is essentially just The Plagiarism Machine.
 

bahamut920

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If using art that you don't own the rights to in a forums avatar is plagiarism, then I guess we're all going to jail, because like 99% of forums users just grab some anime girl or video game character or whatever and they sure as hell don't own the rights to Asuka or Mario.
 

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Project is still active, just taking a break.
This project is absolutely free to use; I do not charge anything for MediCat USB.
MediCat USB is made to take advantage of bleeding edge computers.
Derivative projects are allowed and encouraged.
MediCat USB is clean of viruses, malware, or any kind of malicious code.
Modify MediCat's ISOs and menus as you see fit!
USB bootable using Ventoy and 7-zip.
Supports Legacy BIOS (CSM) and UEFI
Now has a page on https://alternativeto.net/software/medicat-dvd/about/
Gluten-free, non-GMO, gender neutral, and no trans-fats!


MediCat History:
I run a PC repair service out of my home called Reset Computers. As a seasoned PC Technician (A+ Certified by CompTIA) in the field for 16 years, I could never find a software toolbox that could fit my personal needs.... Until I found YUMI, which allowed me to customize my own. That got me making multiboot USB sticks, and all was great. However, some older hardware (and picky computers) wouldn't boot from them, rendering them useless. Even the F-key boot menu wouldn't work. Sometimes the BIOS just doesn't support bootable USB sticks for whatever reason, even when set to Legacy Boot in the BIOS settings. So I made a bootable DVD variety, for those finicky computers that refuse to (or can't) boot from USB. So I created a bootable ISO called MediCat DVD in early 2012. I kept working on it and kept it updated whenever I needed to, but never thought about releasing it. The first public release wasn't until February 2nd, 2014. I had a stable home and job so I figured, 'why not?'. Now the project has outgrown DVD-R media, and is known as MediCat USB.

The Project Objective:
My overall goal of this project is to continue where Hiren's Boot CD/DVD left off in 2012; Provide a simplified menu system that's completely overloaded with useful PC tools, be easy to navigate, and remain aesthetically pleasing to technicians. I wanted something elegant, but not too distracting. I didn't want it to come across as too technical-looking, or confusing. So I did what I could to spruce things up. MediCat USB is made with modern 64-bit computers in mind.






Try the new MediCat Installer, made by @MON5TERMATT :
View attachment 290496


Click the Google Drive or MEGA buttons below for the download directory,
the Torrent Download button for the torrent, or copy the MAGNET Link:



View attachment 220082
( DO NOT DOWNLOAD ALL THE FILES ALL AT ONCE, ZIPPED!
THEY WILL BE RE-NUMBED WRONG IF YOU DO! DOWNLOAD THEM ONE AT A TIME! )



View attachment 220083
MAIN MEGA LINK.


View attachment 220084
TORRENT FILE. (The fastest and recommended way)



Magnet link:
Code:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:1D714BDF37890669E98933B724B55D47E7F2D01B



View attachment 290667


Please Follow these steps to help you make a bootable USB stick successfully:

First thing to do is disable any "Real-Time Scanning" in your antivirus apps, including Windows Defender!!!

(Otherwise you will have apps get deleted from your USB drive during creation, and things won't work properly.)






Ventoy's donation page

Snappy Driver Installer Origin

Gparted

PortableApps


Giving Center / Computers with Causes

Can I run the PortableApps on my current PC without booting up MediCat?"
Yes, just mount the MediCat USB, and open Start.exe to launch the platform. These are the same exact apps that get loaded within Mini Windows 10. So if you update them, they will show up updated in Mini Windows 10 as well.

"How do I make this for a 32GB USB stick?"
-Install Ventoy to the drive.
-Open MediCat's first zip.001 file with 7-zip.
-Extract the files and folders to the root of the USB drive.

"Can I add or swap out the PortableApps with different ones?"
Absolutely, I encourage it! Please feel free to modify MediCat to YOUR individual needs! :D

"Can I install Mini Windows 10 as my main OS?"
No, it doesn't work like that. It's a WinPE image (Windows Pre-install Environment) that runs in memory. It's primary use is to troubleshoot a troublesome PC.

"Is it free?"
Absolutely. I will never charge money for MediCat, or accept donations. However, feel free to share your ideas, questions, and concerns in this thread. That's how you can give back. :)

"How often will this be updated?"
MediCat USB is now a rolling release, so will be regularly updated with major releases, and minor updates as needed (Typically monthly or bi-monthly). The links here will always be the latest version. The PortableApps are easily updatable by the user, once they have been 'burned' to USB.

"If anyone can make these bootable USB sticks, what makes yours so special?"
Nothing, really. Just simplicity, and convenience on my part. Everything is subjective to opinion of usefulness. My software suite may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if it helps you in the field, yay!
Thanks for the share
 
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linux_nerd

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This USB gets nuked everytime I restart to windows. All other similar tools use ISO because of that. They even are mostly compatible with each other because of that. This is a true unicorn :D
 

MON5TERMATT

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That's disgusting. I guess I'm just going to go back to using Hiren's, until you decide to stop using gen. ai for things at least.
Maybe I seem stupid here, but I don't care. I'd rather not use things made by people that decide it's okay to use what is essentially just The Plagiarism Machine.
see ya.
 
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aesLuden

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That's disgusting. I guess I'm just going to go back to using Hiren's, until you decide to stop using gen. ai for things at least.
Maybe I seem stupid here, but I don't care. I'd rather not use things made by people that decide it's okay to use what is essentially just The Plagiarism Machine.
i had to make this account since i couldn't activate my old one just to say that this comment made my day, thank you sir for giving me a good laugh
 

SylverReZ

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That's disgusting. I guess I'm just going to go back to using Hiren's, until you decide to stop using gen. ai for things at least.
Maybe I seem stupid here, but I don't care. I'd rather not use things made by people that decide it's okay to use what is essentially just The Plagiarism Machine.
This is the funniest thing I have ever read from you. What's even wrong with AI?

i had to make this account since i couldn't activate my old one just to say that this comment made my day, thank you sir for giving me a good laugh
Welcome to GBAtemp! I suggest speaking to an admin to re-activate your old account (here).
 

bahamut920

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This is the funniest thing I have ever read from you. What's even wrong with AI?


Welcome to GBAtemp! I suggest speaking to an admin to re-activate your old account (here).
I personally don't like the usage of generative AI in commercial/creative ventures, because most of them AFAIK are trained on data sets that include basically anything that can be scraped off the internet, including copyrighted works. Using generative AI to "create" something that you then claim ownership of is very dubious. But as always, the morality of a tool is determined by its usage, and using it to generate a forums avatar is about as inoffensive a use as I can think of, especially considering as I mentioned in an earlier post, people use copyrighted art all the time for forums avatars and nobody gives a shit.
 

jeffyTheHomebrewer

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This is the funniest thing I have ever read from you. What's even wrong with AI?


Welcome to GBAtemp! I suggest speaking to an admin to re-activate your old account (here).
You- you SERIOUSLY see no issue with generative AI?
Jesus. And I thought we were friends! What the fuck?! I feel like I'm going insane here. How is it *not* wrong to be using something that's just scraping up random images without credit and mishmashing blobby pixels together until it gets something that looks like the prompt you oh-so-effortfully "crafted", instead of making a drawing or other image yourself, wasting less power and water.

You people are part of the goddamn problem, fuck this.
Post automatically merged:

I personally don't like the usage of generative AI in commercial/creative ventures, because most of them AFAIK are trained on data sets that include basically anything that can be scraped off the internet, including copyrighted works. Using generative AI to "create" something that you then claim ownership of is very dubious. But as always, the morality of a tool is determined by its usage, and using it to generate a forums avatar is about as inoffensive a use as I can think of, especially considering as I mentioned in an earlier post, people use copyrighted art all the time for forums avatars and nobody gives a shit.
This, I still feel like generating something is worse than just grabbing a real, person-made image though. I don't think art theft is good and to me, a lot of gen. ai IS art theft.
 

Jayro

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You- you SERIOUSLY see no issue with generative AI?
Jesus. And I thought we were friends! What the fuck?! I feel like I'm going insane here. How is it *not* wrong to be using something that's just scraping up random images without credit and mishmashing blobby pixels together until it gets something that looks like the prompt you oh-so-effortfully "crafted", instead of making a drawing or other image yourself, wasting less power and water.

You people are part of the goddamn problem, fuck this.
Post automatically merged:


This, I still feel like generating something is worse than just grabbing a real, person-made image though. I don't think art theft is good and to me, a lot of gen. ai IS art theft.
If you don't like Ai generative art and think it's theft, then don't use it... Simple as that. But someone else using it has zero bearing on your life. Move on...
 

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I semi-recently got the idea of repackaging the mini Windows 10 as a ~1GB ISO for use in virtual machines and stuff, and I was wondering if this is something others would also be interested in? The main thing is that Medicat's mini Windows 10, as I've previously described, seems to be the best (or at least the easiest?) way to create recursive checksums for large amounts of files and/or folders from EXT4 filesystems that I know of.

It's just that my internet upload is quite slow (~100KB/s, not a typo), so it'll literally (not figuratively) take hours unless I find a way to patch the existing download into an ISO via a small patch file similar to those used with rom hacks.


—————————————————


On the subject of rom hacks, as someone that's had an account on here for quite a long time (my profile says I joined in 2007), I feel like some people commenting on AI stuff don't exactly realize that GBATemp is kind of, shall we say... "lax" on the entire concept of copyright as a whole.

I personally have a bit of a weird view on AI stuff in that one of my major reasons of being for it is specifically because I see it as a sort of "canary in a coal mine" of the absurdness that copyright laws have become (the other major reason generally being around being able to depict things that are "unconventional" or don't otherwise exist - I've already long been a fan of "unconventional" works pre-AI for similar reasons)

Yet my major rebuttal of AI stuff is that, as someone on the autistic spectrum (medically diagnosed like 15 years ago), I actually succumb to the curious thing of getting literal, not figurative, headaches from AI-generated content (it's not instant, but it definitely happens after anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on various factors and, interestingly, even just thinking and/or typing about this AI stuff right now is spurring on such a headache?):
 
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austinexe

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I semi-recently got the idea of repackaging the mini Windows 10 as a ~1GB ISO for use in virtual machines and stuff, and I was wondering if this is something others would also be interested in? The main thing is that Medicat's mini Windows 10, as I've previously described, seems to be the best (or at least the easiest?) way to create recursive checksums for large amounts of files and/or folders from EXT4 filesystems that I know of.

It's just that my internet upload is quite slow (~100KB/s, not a typo), so it'll literally (not figuratively) take hours unless I find a way to patch the existing download into an ISO via a small patch file similar to those used with rom hacks.


—————————————————


On the subject of rom hacks, as someone that's had an account on here for quite a long time (my profile says I joined in 2007), I feel like some people commenting on AI stuff don't exactly realize that GBATemp is kind of, shall we say... "lax" on the entire concept of copyright as a whole.

I personally have a bit of a weird view on AI stuff in that one of my major reasons of being for it is specifically because I see it as a sort of "canary in a coal mine" of the absurdness that copyright laws have become (the other major reason generally being around being able to depict things that are "unconventional" or don't otherwise exist - I've already long been a fan of "unconventional" works pre-AI for similar reasons)

Yet my major rebuttal of AI stuff is that, as someone on the autistic spectrum (medically diagnosed like 15 years ago), I actually succumb to the curious thing of getting literal, not figurative, headaches from AI-generated content (it's not instant, but it definitely happens after anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on various factors and, (interestingly, even just thinking and/or typing about this AI stuff right now is spurring on such a headache?):
i could not imagine that hell. as someone with chronic migraines, i feel for you
 
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Nintendo Maniac

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i could not imagine that hell. as someone with chronic migraines, i feel for you
I don't really use social media※ nor real-time chat and much prefer traditional forums like this, and the whole "up-in-arms" thing from the sort of people disliking AI means that it tends to have view toggles on art websites and/or corresponding tags you can use to hide them.

I'm not a very social person in general, so it's not like I have anyone trying to share the latest AI memes with me...or really the latest anything.

In general, I've managed to make my internet usage extremely "voluntary" for lack of a better term over the last few years even before AI was a thing, so 99% of my internet usage is because I'm intentionally navigating and/or searching for a specific thing. And in the one area I'm a bit more lax on that, computer electronics hardware, tends to also be filled with people exasperated by "AI all of the things!" being used as investor bait ("AI thermal paste" was a common go-to example from this year's Computex) and therefore gets minimal focus outside of press releases and marketing fluff (this is likely contrasted by people more in the software side of computer things which I would figure are much more on the AI bandwagon, but I could never code for the life of me, yet I can delid CPU IHSes without issue)


*in fact my decade+ reddit account got suspended a couple of months ago for "suspicious activity" when I was experimenting with proton's hide-my-email function for a per-website address and, a few months later, I went and edited some of my old 4-year posts to update some PSA information on two posts I had made regarding an English fan-patch for a visual novel - immediately after editing the 2nd post is when I got suspended
 
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