Tips on moving to Linux?

[TeamBlackFox]

Congrats on enjoying Linux, its a great OS despite its flaws. I've used IRIX, Solaris, SunOS, OS X, Windows, AmigaOS, BeOS/ZETA/Haiku, FreeBSD and Linux itself is by far one of the better ones around.

[TeamBlackFox]

Well MegaMig, we're on a vintage computer site. AmigaOS isn't modern by any standard, and yet I doubt 10% or less of the population here would consider it obsolete. Its just that in hindsight, XP is crap. It was good back then, but its filth now.

[TeamBlackFox]

You're saying that Windows 8.1 is not better than Windows XP?

While this isn't directed at me, I am inclined to concur. Windows 8/8.1 is MS BOB all over again. The Metro interface is designed for a mobile phone, and on a desktop it is clunky. The fact that Windows 8.1 failed to fix many of the flaws, it just added a shortcut to the menu, makes me not want to use it, that much.
 I have not used Windows so much in the last 6 years that I don't even bother with anything besides 98lite for DOS games, 2000/XP for legacy PC compatibility, and Windows 7 for the rare occasion WINE does not do the job.

[TeamBlackFox]

Hey ral-clan,

I know this was previously mentioned, but one of the UNIX ways of backing up drives is to use Disk Dump or dd.

Open a terminal, and type gparted, then when you get the partition number for your NTFS partition (/dev/sda# if SATA/SCSI or /dev/hda# if IDE) then close out and drop back to the shell.

Type the following:

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$ mkdir ~/backups
$ dd if=$yourpartition# of=~/backups/$backupname bs=4096 conv=noerror
Example:

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$ dd if=/dev/sda2 of=~/backups/archbang20140407 bs=4096 conv=noerrorThis will copy a disk image equal to size of your partition to a directory called backups in your home directory.

It takes awhile but this method has a few benefits:

1. If you lose all your data or mess up that partition, setting up a new partition then running dd to copy the data back (if is the source and of is the destination, so you can do it backwards) this will result in a (mostly) turnkey solution, assuming your bootloader is already setup

2. The image you made COULD be run in a VM if needed.

3. You can restore the image from any UNIX system, this command will work on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and apparently there is a dd port for Windows too, never used it myself, however.

[TeamBlackFox]

AmigaPixel,

By default Ubuntu will default to using the opensource X11 drivers, package names are
nouveau for Nvidia cards
radeon for ATi/AMD cards unless very old

If you don't intend to run 3D games on Ubuntu, it is best to stick with nouveau, if it isn't broke, don't fix it. If you want to run 3d games, look for the nvidia proprietary driver (free to download) and ensure your xorg.conf (X server config file) is setup for it. Feel free to ask me if you get stuck, I have used GNU/Linux for about 8 years so while I'm not super knowledgable, I know a fair amount about UNIX.

[TeamBlackFox]

I use several versions:

Arch Linux on a laptop
FreeBSD for desktop and servers
IRIX on SGI Octane
And I have a PowerMac G5 I need to rebuild the watercooler in, going to be used for something, yet to decide since it doesn't run at the moment.

[TeamBlackFox]

Oh god, the liquid cooled G5 Mac Pros.  Why didn't someone at Apple think "hmm liquid and electronics, what could possibly go wrong with that?"

Hey, its not leaking in my quad G5 version - I have no qualms as its whisper quiet, I am just rebuilding the cooling unit as a way to stave off a failure - standard for water cooled computers every so often.

[TeamBlackFox]

Hence me doing prevetive maintenance and also changing the coolant to distilled water - far less corrosive to stock stuff.