Thinking of switching to Linux.

[Clockwork13]

I'm late but IMO Debian is the best. For what I use linux for at least. For casual purposes, either Mint or Ubuntu (supposedly. personally i don't like either)

Edited April 24, 2018 by Clockwork13

[LordFerret]

59 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

I'm planning to "switch" back to Linux, to be honest, because UNIX (MacOS) these days is increasingly.... I can't properly describe it on this forum because there are children and those of ill health and timid temper about. (Never in my life have I seen an entire catalog of software products collapse as quickly and soundly as Apple's are right now. Pure rubbish, across the board. Can't even save bookmarks in the web browser now, because who the heck knows why....)

I have to maintain M'Lady's MacBook Pro. It is increasingly becoming a pain in the butt to deal with, so I feel your pain. I'm pretty sure I'd updated it to 'High Sierra', which as I recall had caused a few issues for her... 'where did it go?' ... 'why doesn't it whatever anymore?'. She doesn't know it yet, but she'll be getting a new machine soon, likely with Mint on it. I am dreading extracting her photo and video library off of it.

[Cydonian Monk]

19 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

I am dreading extracting her photo and video library off of it.

My photo library never really left Linux, but the frontend I use to work with it did. Adobe Lightroom is the one thing that’s really holding me back. There’s an open-source sorta-replacement out there, but.... OSS is seldom competitive with top-tier professional software and this is no exception. So I might end up moving my photography workflow to Windows (or see if I can get Lightroom to be workable in Wine; it wasn’t previously). 

High Sierra should be sent to the Mojave. 

[Kernel Kraken]

50 minutes ago, Clockwork13 said:

I'm late but IMO Debian is the best. For what I use linux for at least. For casual purposes, either Mint or Ubuntu (supposedly. personally i don't like either)

I'm mostly using Linux for casual purposes. I've decided to dual boot Mint with Win10- I like windows, even though it wrecks my HDD every two months and I have to reformat it...

 

26 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

High Sierra should be sent to the Mojave. 

Budum [KSP.exe is not responding]

Heh heh... Get it? Badum- Crash?

I'll stop now.

 

[Geonovast]

1 minute ago, Kernel Kraken said:

even though it wrecks my HDD every two months and I have to reformat it...

I'm the last person to defend Windows, but this really sounds like a hardware problem.

[Kernel Kraken]

1 minute ago, Geonovast said:

I'm the last person to defend Windows, but this really sounds like a hardware problem.

Yeah.... I think it is too. I'm too lazy to order a new HDD, and I haven't had any problems since the last reformat (~ three months now) I just hope it's only my HDD. I'm scared to try to fix it as the last time I tried to open a PC somehow I ended up frying the power supply, not the other way around. 

[steve_v]

12 hours ago, Geonovast said:

I've yet to manage a Mint installation in with secure boot on - which, AFAIK, Win 10 requires.

Apparently, dual booting with secure boot enabled is possible. In an odious "your linux distro needs to have their kernel image (or a shim) signed with a Microshaft key" kind of way. This obnoxious behaviour is (and was) enough to make me simply format my windows drive and use it for something more useful... like cat pictures.

If you are okay with Microsoft unilaterally dictating what you can and cannot boot on your PC, by all means use secure restricted boot and Windows 10. I wouldn't touch the thing with a 40' pole.

Edited April 24, 2018 by steve_v

[Daveroski]

7 hours ago, YNM said:

Would that mean a partition is enough ? I already have the partition.

Obviously not, I'm lagging behind.

I think if I were you, I download a version of linux like 'Tails'

It is a very secure version of linux designed to run only from  a USB Stick. All of it's storage is on the stick so it will not use your HD for storage for it's own personal use.

Once you have a USB with 'Tails' on it you can use it on virtually any PC that will allow you to boot from a USB port. You will have to check your BIOS settings to make sure your lap-top has the ability. When you close down it will be all like, 'You never seen me.. right?' to your lap-top.

Using and playing with a version like this will let you know if your hardware is 'Linux friendly' as some hardware from some manufacturers can be considered 'Linux Hostile unfriendly' and will not allow it to use their hardware.

Assuming Tails works, then make sure you back up and can recover any data you will not want to lose in the event of HD corruption by it's current operating system. Tails will not install to your HD. It is only designed to be used from a USB stick. You will have to have a version of your preferred Linux to hand.

[YNM]

5 hours ago, Daveroski said:

Tails

Hmm...

Can it be used to install GRUB and then I can get away with getting the rather standard ubuntu ?

But OK, I'll look about it.

My hardware is a Lenovo ideapad 500; the PC I used that has Ubuntu on it is also a Lenovo. Don't think it's particularly hostile, just the bootloader.

Edited April 24, 2018 by YNM

[silverfox101]

My only advice would be that if you have any hardware such as a flight stick, make sure you will be able to use it, ask about on the forum, I know a guy on here is unable to use his flight stick on his Linux system.

[Daveroski]

43 minutes ago, YNM said:

Hmm...

Can it be used to install GRUB and then I can get away with getting the rather standard ubuntu ?

But OK, I'll look about it.

My hardware is a Lenovo ideapad 500; the PC I used that has Ubuntu on it is also a Lenovo. Don't think it's particularly hostile, just the bootloader.

The point is, it shouldn't change your laptop in any way and so should be safe to run. It will let you know if your laptop and it's associated hardware is Linux Friendly or not.

[LordFerret]

11 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

it wrecks my HDD

How so? Define for me, please.

Would it be excessive HD thrashing?

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, silverfox101 said:

My only advice would be that if you have any hardware such as a flight stick, make sure you will be able to use it

For reference: https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/17984, and https://forum.unity.com/threads/no-joystick-detected.475870/, and https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/171983-ksp-14-joystick-not-found-under-linux/

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2018 by steve_v

[silverfox101]

Why thank you @steve_v, my Linux days are long behind me fortunately ( I will put myself on the naught step for that comment) 

[Kernel Kraken]

3 hours ago, LordFerret said:

How so? Define for me, please.

Would it be excessive HD thrashing?

I honestly have no clue. Every two months it says something about Disk damage then I have to reformat it.

[Geonovast]

2 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

I honestly have no clue. Every two months it says something about Disk damage then I have to reformat it.

Harddrives are cheap.  Replace it.

[Kernel Kraken]

6 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Harddrives are cheap.  Replace it.

And with Amazon I can do it without physical human interaction!

Edit: I'll download Mint and dual-boot it with Windows 10 by (in my time zone, 'MURICA! standard time) Sunday... Hopefully. Should I get a separate HDD to boot it off of? A terrabyte isn't very expensive anymore so I'm considering it.

Edited April 25, 2018 by Kernel Kraken

[LordFerret]

On 4/24/2018 at 1:57 PM, Kernel Kraken said:

I honestly have no clue. Every two months it says something about Disk damage then I have to reformat it.

My bet would be its an old drive. Time for new.

I asked about the HDD thrashing under Linux, because there is a situation responsible for this related to journaling... which, I believe, is on by default in Debian (and likely others). This would make an old drive definitely very tired and show errors.

[NSEP]

Honestly, the only reason i don't use Linux is that im too used to Windows, Windows is melted right on my face. Many people say Linux is superior, so i would recommend it.

[Kernel Kraken]

14 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Honestly, the only reason i don't use Linux is that im too used to Windows, Windows is melted right on my face. Many people say Linux is superior, so i would recommend it.

This is also the reason I haven't switched yet.

Side question to the people that keep awnsering my stupid questions: why did yos guys switch to Linux? What do you think the biggest advantage over windows is?

 

Edited April 25, 2018 by Kernel Kraken

[Geonovast]

24 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

why did yos guys switch to Linux?

I'd contemplated it for awhile, but this is the biggest reason.

Also, you know, free.  And it's not Windows.

 

41 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Many people say Linux is superior, so i would recommend it.

While I personally believe this, which OS is superior really comes down to the user, and what they use their computer for.

 

49 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Honestly, the only reason i don't use Linux is that im too used to Windows

There is a bit of a learning curve, but some of the DEs have an overall feel similar to Windows.  If you consider it, it's pretty easy to shop around and try out multiple distributions by simply booting into a live environment from a USB thumb drive.

[Cydonian Monk]

5 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Side question to the people that keep awnsering my stupid questions: why did yos guys switch to Linux? 

Socialism. (And I’m only half joking.)

Mainly I switched because I was studying hardware design and I needed to be able to build C/C++ code for (what we now call) embedded devices outside of school. (I’m a computer engineer by training; though unlicensed.) And then I started cutting into operating systems in general and fell so far down the rabbit hole that the White Rabbit turned green.

And because WindowsME thrashed two hard disks so badly that it caused head crashes. The second one of those failing was the final straw, my point of no return. 

 

Windows 7 was a perfectly serviceable OS though, so I moved back to PC (from console) for gaming after a decade or so. And I’m generally pleased with Windows 10. I only use them at work or for gaming at home though. My daily driver is still OS-X. (Which I switched to around the time Gentoo went through a major meltdown.)

[HebaruSan]

5 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Side question to the people that keep awnsering my stupid questions: why did yos guys switch to Linux?

I learned Unix on school servers in the 90s and fell in love. It was obvious that I needed it on my own machine. Even though Linux has full featured file managers now, I still pop open a terminal when I need to do something with files (except browsing photos ).

5 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

What do you think the biggest advantage over windows is?

I dual boot currently after several years of Linux-only; my Win7 and Ubuntu environments are so similar that I sometimes forget which one I'm in. Same browser, same terminal, same editor, same Steam (though obviously a much larger library on Windows, the reason for the dual boot in the first place), apps tiled on the left and right halves of the screen, same focus-follows-mouse (that registry key took some searching to find!). These days I'm pretty comfortable in either one.

The things I like about Linux may be arcane and not of interest to everyone, but they're my reasons, and they include:

• Ability to install a package and all its dependencies from a central repository with one command (and have it auto update thenceforth as new versions come out, including full OS upgrades)
• No drive letters
• Ability to change the window manager (I use XMonad because I like Haskell)
• Powerful, integrated scripting languages; put "#!/bin/bash" at the top of a file, and you've started a program that can do just about anything, and you also have Perl and Python and others ready to go in just about any distro
• Can boot and install from the network (I didn't feel like buying external drives when I initially set up my PC, so I booted it off of an ISO hosted on a MacBook)
• Excellent support for symbolic links (I've heard Windows has them, but I'm skeptical that they work as well)
• I can change anything that I don't like
• If something goes wrong, I can find or create bug reports in free projects as needed, apply patches, or even download the code and fix things myself

[LordFerret]

8 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

why did yos guys switch to Linux?

Unix (in all its many flavors over the years) was out there long before Windows existed. Linux is Unix. There was no switch. If anything, the switch was my being 'forced' to work with Windows because that's where everyone went in the process of being led about by the nose.

[Kernel Kraken]

2 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

Unix (in all its many flavors over the years) was out there long before Windows existed. Linux is Unix. There was no switch. If anything, the switch was my being 'forced' to work with Windows because that's where everyone went in the process of being led about by the nose.

You dang kids with yer fancy windows ten and yer whoosy- what it phones and yer over- restrictive operating systems! Back in my day we manually put punchcards into the computer lab! Bah, disrespectful kids...