Tips on moving to Linux?

[Ral-Clan]

Hi guys,

I'm sticking with Windows XP for a while yet as it has several applications I really like and it supports some older hardware (graphics tablet, pro music card) I need to keep running.
However, I'm considering my upgrade path for when I am finally forced to leave Windows XP in the future. I'd prefer to not have to use Windows 7 or 8.

So for the first time I am very seriously considering Linux. I would like to start by dipping my toe into Linux with the aim of eventually make it my day-to-day OS in a few years. In order to ease myself into it, I'd like to set up a dual boot Windows XP / Linux system and slowly migrate as much of my work as possible over to Linux as I get used to it. My computer is an older Windows XP era box: Intel Pentium4 running at 2.8Ghz, hyperthreading CPU with 3GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.

I know very little about Linux, so am grateful for all recommendations and answers to the following questions:

1. What type of Linux would be the most widely compatible and still good on a system from about 8 years ago (specs above)?
2. For my purposes (gradual immersion), should I create a partition on the 160GB hard drive for Linux, or buy a 32GB or 64GB USB stick and install on that?
3. Any tips or good guides on creating a dual boot system?
5. Any tips on creating a Linux partition on a hard drive WITHOUT having to destroy and re-install the XP partition that already exists there (i.e. Swissknife?)?
6. Any complications or pitfalls I need to watch out for on a dual boot system?
7. Are all Linux strains compatible? I don't want to be stuck with a Linux branch that can't run common binaries.
8. In future, will I always need a Windows XP partition to run my legacy Windows XP applications, or is Wine under Linux good enough now?

The things I am going to miss most are the EXCELLENT (truly outstanding) quality of WinVICE and WinUAE emulators on Windows. These are 99.8% perfect emulators. I've heard the quality of Commodore emulation is not quite as good under Linux (emulators not as well developed). For instance, I push WinUAE quite hard, running intensive Amiga graphics and 3d rendering packages and timing-critical MIDI software. It performs like a champ.

I also have a semi-pro PCI audio card (M-Audio Delta 192) which I use for music composing. It's a high quality, low latency card and I hope there have been Linux drivers for it.

I'm also really going to miss Sony Vegas non-linear video editing software, for which I paid $100. It's superb. Is there something equivalent on Linux?

Thanks for any input you have...

[Ral-Clan]

This has been a very informative threat - please keep it coming - even the warnings about using Linux.

Honestly, I am totally happy with my XP system.  If it wasn't for the fact I'm bracing for the malware onslaught to hit after April 8th, I would be in bliss.  I'm usually very careful when browsing and take precautions.

I hope the malware onslaught is over-rated, though, like Y2K was.

Actually, I'll be happy, when, in six years, XP has become such a forgotten, niche OS that the malware authors don't even target it anymore.

The Dual boot Linux/XP seems very attractive.  I'm extremely pleased to hear that the Ubuntu install takes care of all of that for you automatically.

[Ral-Clan]

Hi guys,

This discussion is very interesting and informative.

I'm posting this message from a Livd CD of Lubuntu right now.  At first brush - a very first brush as I've only had it going for five minutes - I'm impressed!

[Ral-Clan]

Okay folks,

I have pretty much narrowed it down to a choice between Lubuntu and Ubuntu.  I have considered the distros made for music making (i.e. Linux Studio) but I like to start off with a clean slate rather than have a lot of apps installed for me beforehand.

So, what is the real difference between Lubuntu and Ubuntu, other than that the former is "lighter"?  If it is lighter, but can do all the same things, than why doesn't everyone just use that?  

Also, if I do go with Lubuntu, am I going to be able to find that programs are already available in precompiled version for that distro?  Will I be able to just download Ubuntu compiled stuff and run it?

I guess what I'm asking is - what is the "downside" of Lubuntu over regular Ubuntu?  The website doesn't make it clear.  The Ubuntu site says Ubuntu only needs a 700Mhz processor and 500MB RAM - so that seems pretty light already!

Remember, I'm going to install this on an 8 year old PC (P4, 3GBRAM) so that was another reason I was attracted to the "lighter" sounding Lubuntu.

Thanks, really appreciate all the suggestions.

Also, is there anything like Irfanview for Linux?  I love that little utility.

Looking at Amiga emulators for Linux, there seems to be a few (FS-UAE, E-UAE) - which is better developed?

[Ral-Clan]

@ral-clan,

Good choice on Ubuntu type OS's, lubuntu is lighter because it is basically made to work on old laptops, computers, and some of today's tablets. I tried this a couple of days ago, and it seems real  nice. Uses about 512 megs of memory (if I remember right) so you don't need a massive amount of memory, and very light on graphics usage.

Yeah, I understand Lubuntu is meant for older computers - but what have they cut out of it besides the eye candy?  Is it less functional than Ubuntu?

Also, is there any way to have a shared folder between your Windows and Linux partitions, so you can, for instance, save a graphics project you've been working on on the Linux side and when you load Windows you can access it?

Thanks.

[Ral-Clan]

I would recommend setting up a virtual environment and playing with the distributions in that until you find the one you want to run instead of immediately doing a dual boot setup.

Sounds like good advice, but let's say I do this and spend a week setting up a nice Linux environment with all the applications I want.  Then I decide I want to keep it.  Is there any way for me to put this virtual machine on a real hard drive partition, or would I have to go through setup all over again from scratch on the real partition.

Glad I am asking all of this on an Amiga forum - don't want the RTFM stuff from the Linux forums.

[Ral-Clan]

I would be interested to see how ral-clan gets on with VM'ing. Given that he has stated that the host is a P4 @ 2.8ghz. I am unsure if any of the P4's ever had VT.

That was my thought exactly.  My system is only a P4 with 3GB RAM. Apparently you can download Microsoft's Virtual Machine 2007 and use it in Windows XP, but I don't think a VM is a practical option for me with this system.  I'll probably either just make a true partition when I'm ready or install on a USB stick (with the intention of later moving it to a real hard drive partition).

I can't install a dedicated hard drive for Linux because my system already has drives on all the IDE channels/pairs.

[Ral-Clan]

Virtual Box is a free VM program. It works well and you may just get away with VM'ing it rather than spending money and time on Microsofts own VM stuff.

If you want to install Lubuntu to a USB stick then check out this thread. You will need at the very least a 4gb USB stick. Or if you have a spare USB physical drive then even better. Just remember that performance might be slightly impacted due to read and write speeds.

Justa quick question. How are you planning on connecting the system to the net? Is it on Wi-Fi or hard wired?

Hi! Well, my desktop is wired - and I had the internet going straight from the Lubunto live CD automatically.  That was neat.

I do have an XP laptop used by the rest of the family for average day-to-day stuff.  If my Linux experience is positive I could see installing Linux on that one day.  It of course is wireless.

Why, is wireless networking a particular tricky thing with Linux?

[Ral-Clan]

Yup. MS VM is only good if you are going to be running just Windows on a basic level. I have used it to host Win 98 on occasion. Virtual Box is much more feature rich. However I am concious of the limitations of the host.

Seems the more I think about it the more that installing to USB might be a more sound idea.

A question about virtual machines:

Lets say you are running Linux, and have a PCI card (or other hardware) installed for which Linux has no drivers (so useless from within Linux). Then you set up a Virtual Machine running Windows XP, and in that virtual machine there are drivers for that PCI card. Can the PCI card be used normally from within that Virtual Machine?

I ask this because I have a semi-pro audio card and graphics tablet for which there might not be Linux drivers.  I probably will go dual-boot instaed of VM, but just wanted to get an answer on this question first.

Thanks.

[Ral-Clan]

Okay, one more question.

One of the thing that bugs me about Windows, is that if your motherboard dies, you cannot just take the hard drive out and put in in a different computer and keep going.  The Windows XP installation is dependent on certain drivers set up to match the motherboard and related hardware it was running on (or so I've read).  Migrating a whole hard-disc to a new computer is difficult and a re-install is usually a better choice (besides the whole registration/authentication thing).

Is Linux any better in this regard?  Is migration to a new base set of hardware simple?  I assume it is better since the whole "Live CD" and "Live USB stick" installation seems to be very base hardware independent.

This would be a very important attraction for me to Linux, as I had a motherboard die on me once and had to re-install my whole Windows XP system from scratch on a new XP.  Simply moving the hard drive over would have been so much nicer!

[Ral-Clan]

Not that this helps your question at all, but when I have a motherboard failure in any of our systems, I just go on ebay or amazon and purchase an identical replacement motherboard.  Just my .02 cents from someone who's replaced hundreds of motherboards over the years.  

Glad you're enjoying Linux so far!  

Yeah, I thought of this, but the reason my motherboard died was because of swollen capacitors.  I checked out an identical computer for sale locally (good price) but it was also suffering from swollen capacitors (just hadn't failed yet).  So I was very wary of sticking with the same motherboard, even though I was very happy with the computer while it had functioned.

[Ral-Clan]

Hi guys,

Well, I tried to do a permanent dual boox (XP/Lubuntu) installation of Lubuntu this evening, and I'm sorry to say it did not go smoothly.  In fact, I was stumped pretty early into the install process and not able to proceed.  I'll explain what happened.

First of all, you need to know that my computer has TWO hard drives installed.  A 160GB drive which is my "system" drive.  This contains Windows XP.  The second drive is a 500GB "media" drive which contains all my projects and large files used when I'm doing video editing and music/audio recording.  So the 500GB drive is only for dumping large media files to.

I want to install Lubuntu on the 160GB "system" drive, alongside Windows XP.  I would be happy to evenly split the drive between the two operating systems.

When I begin to install Lubuntu, I get this screen (click to enlarge any images in this message):


(this is just a stock screenshot I found on the 'net, but it's pretty much the same as what I'm shown)

So I choose the first option "Install Lubuntu alongside Windows XP..."

But on the next screen it appears that Lubuntu is trying to install itself on my 500GB "media" drive (which I do NOT want).



The drop down bar at the top does not allow me to select any other drive than the one that is showing.

So....I go back one step (to the first screen) and instead choose "Something else".

Now I get this screen, which seems to show all my drives.  But it's very confusing and non intuitive.  I don't know what to do, and furthermore, I am terrified to try anything for fear of wiping my Windows XP drive completely.



So, now I am stuck.  Not knowing how to proceed in the installation of Lubuntu.

I consider myself pretty computer savvy (having used computers since 1980) but I find this a little daunting (which is disappointing because I heard Linux was welcoming).

I'm thinking what I want to do can be accomplished through the software installer, but if not, I could shut off the secondary "media" hard drive in the BIOS or just unplug in from the IDE cable and then try the install on the 160GB drive alone.

Can anyone provide any advice?  Thanks.

[Ral-Clan]

Ok. The most simple thing would be to remove the media drive from the equation to limit a potentially nasty incident. This also forces the installer to go for the windows drive.

Well, I disabled the Primary IDE Slave drive in the computer's BIOS, but I guess the Lubuntu installer auto-detected it when booting because exactly the same thing as I explained above is happening again (the simple install option only allows me to choose the 500GB drive as its destination and does not show the 160GB system hard drive I want to install to).

So it looks like I'm going to have to open the computer and physically disconnect the 500GB media drive.  

Cracking open the case and fiddling with IDE cables just to install an OS is not my definition of "just works" or "user friendly".  I'm discouraged to say that this is not a wholly positive first impression of Linux/Lubuntu.

I hope it gets better.

[Ral-Clan]

Within the "Something Else" installation option, here is what you want to do:
1) Select the current Windows partition (/dev/sda1).
2) Click "Change..."
3) You will need to shrink your Windows partition to make room for a Linux partition. Enter a new size for your Windows partition. Based on how much space you've used (almost 30 GB), you could safely shrink it down to 60 GB (60000 MB) and have plenty of room to spare.
4) After the /dev/sda1 partition has been shrunk, you will now see a new option in the list: "free space". Select this option, then click the plus icon to add a new partition in the free space, and give it the following options:
  Type: Primary
  New partition size: just accept whatever's here (it will be all your available free space)
  Use as: Ext4 journaling file system
  Mount point: / (you can select it from the drop-down menu)

Then click OK. Your new partition will show up as "/dev/sda2" alongside your Windows partition on "/dev/sda1", and you can proceed to "Install Now".

Good luck

This is the most helpful reply so far.  Thanks.  But what does...

Mount point: / (you can select it from the drop-down menu)

....mean?  I can select what, exactly, from the drop down menu?  I have no idea what a "mount point" is, so I'm not going to know what to choose.

Thanks.

[Ral-Clan]

Ral-clan, I feel like you've had a lot of info thrown at you, much of it conflicting. I wanted to just summarize a few things for you based on my years of using Linux as my primary OS.

Thanks, Mr. Bumpy.  That was a very informative and plain-spoken posting.  I definitely came out of it knowing more about Linux.