Tips on moving to Linux?

[CritAnime]

You only have to look through your posts to see the incessant old woman levels of moaning. Doesn't need any mod credentials to comment on that

[CritAnime]

Try http://elementaryos.org if you like minimalistic, light and fast OS, based on Ubuntu. I like it a lot, another interesting and very nice looking "theme" turning into a distro itself is the upcoming http://www.webupd8.org/2014/02/numix-announces-new-linux-distribution.html

p.s. never had any issues with Linux.. for me personally, it just works.. and it works great.

So given the recommendation I decided to take the plunge from trialing on a USB stick to installing on a actual HDD.

(clicky the pic for a bigger version)


From a newbie point of view it seems friendly enough. As most of the *buntu/debian systems tend to be. It seems lightweight too at just a little over 500mb of RAM used at system load. I am not sure how well the effects work on older end GPU's but I plan to try on a crappy old netbook with shoddy Intel accelerated graphics and see. Package management is done through the Ubuntu store or you can use terminal to easily grab stuff with a apt-get install command.

It's based on the current Ubuntu 12.04 LTS so it should remain well supported for a while. Seems a good system.

Edit:

The Terminal programs running are HTOP from process management and Midnight Commander.

[CritAnime]

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.

Asking the installer to do a automatic install is the best way to go if you are not comfortable slicing the drive yourself. And the screenshot 2 is fairly simple to use. You tell it how much of a split you want. There is a little drag bar in the middle that allows you to set the split. Screen shot 3 is the advanced partitioning tool and I don't recommend using it unless you know how it works.

[CritAnime]

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

 
What he means is this. Mount point simply means what you want the partition to do. In linux you can have multiple partitions all doing their own job but still be part of the the whole system. So you can have one simply for /home which is where you store all your personal stuff. Check out this link.
 

 
When you double click a partition, or create a new partition, it comes up with a dialog box (see above) with some options in it. Set one to EXT 4 (this is the file system) then click format then set mount point to / (root). This will configure the partition to be used for everything to do with the OS.
 

 
This is how my current setup looks. I have just opted to keep things simple considering I have a secondary HDD for backups and such. As you can see I shrunk the Windows 8 parition down and created a 8gb swap partition and the the rest I used as /.
 
Sorry my earlier post wasn't more helpful. It was something like 2:30am and my brain was fuzzy after getting up to feed my daughter. Basically what I was aiming to say was simply that having 2 or more HDDs can make it a touch more difficult. The installer, from the pics you posted showed, thought it would be more appropriate to shrink the spare HDD and allocate space to Linux on there. Thus preserving the Windows HDD. The drop down at the top would have let you select your primary HDD and do it from there anyway.
 
The installer is easy if you let it help you. But, much like Windows, if you have multiple HDD's it can make the process a touch more complicated or if you're wanting to do a dual boot situation. My suggestion to remove the backup HDD from the equation was simply a suggestion. I just know from personal experiences what it is like as a new Linux user to try and install it. It's not difficult, especially with the mordern *buntu installer, but it can be a bit of a learning experience.

[CritAnime]

Mr_bumpy's post sums up partitioning far better than what I could Ral-Clan. But to simplify things lets look at the last bit.
 

In your case, you would only have two partitions: Windows (/dev/sda1, NTFS), Linux (/dev/sda2, ext4). Or if you wanted to create a swap partition as well, then you'd have three. Either way, you should create them all as primary partitions.

To put this into context take a look at how my primary HDD it partitioned.
 

 
This is a similar setup as the kind you would be aiming for. Because I am using Windows 8 I am pushing the limits in terms of how many partitions I can have on one drive, Windows 8 keeps a partition for tools and some system backup stuff. If I would have any more, I considered a /home at some point on this install, I would need a container (extended) partition. However like you I have a secondary HDD I can dump files on for a backup anyway so a dedicated /home is not needed. Thus all partitions can remain primary.
 
Swap, as Mr Bumpy pointed out, is not needed. Yes the installer will complain about there been no swap but you just tell it that this is fine and it installs. Personally I have always kept a swap because this is what I did back in the day when RAM limitations were a issue. And it's a habbit I just keep. :lol: But it really is not a necessity to have it.

[CritAnime]

Your system should have a backup tool already installed. http://www.howtogeek.com/108869/how-to-back-up-ubuntu-the-easy-way-with-dj-dup/
 
it is built into the system so just nerd configuring. If not i beleive its easy enough to just grab from the "app store". Its what i use.

[CritAnime]

Ah yeah. Sorry at work and its silly oclock in the morning. clonezilla is needed for backing up everything, and it's very effective because I too have used it. For some reason i thought he just wanted files.
 
Actually thinking about it. Setting up the inbuilt backup system as a redundent is not a bad idea. I use it and it's handy to keep. Even if he takes advantage of using a service like box or Ubuntu 1 to host the backup on the cloud.

Actually scrap using Ubuntu 1 as they are shutting that cloud service down (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/04/canonical-axe-ubuntu-one-file-music-services-grab-data-now) so stick to Dropbox or Box lol.

[CritAnime]

Just out of curiosity doesn't CloneZilla as a last ditch attampt also use

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dd if=/dev/source of=/dev/destination if it's normal backup system fails? Or did I dream that one lol.

[CritAnime]

Ops system is a p4 without any virtualisation extensions. So it would be very unlikely that a system would run smoothly under vm.

But yes the Linux kernel is light. The stuff that's attached to it is what takes resources. I don't know if it's true still but at one bit you could have a Linux kernel running off a floppy.

[CritAnime]

AmigaPixel, I did the exact same thing as you. Tried to install an NVIDIA driver and it resulted in a black screen on boot. I was almost ready to delete my Linux partition and reinstall when I finally found a good tutorial which helped me remove the bad NVIDIA driver using recovery mode. I then installed the NVIDIA driver manually using the command line and the driver from the NVIDIA site and it worked!
 
The driver installed from the Linux GUI (software & updates) was the one that screwed up my system. PM me if you need help.

I don't know what Canonical where thinking when they altered how the drivers were installed. In the last LTS it was a simple case of going to the restricted drivers option in settings and the drivers marked as reccomended. Simple as that. There were others to install but they were beta drivers and legacy fallback drivers.
 
Now it's not newbie friendly because they just throw a bunch of drivers at you in a part of the system menu that you wouldn't think of looking in. they don't even say whats reccomended you have to pick and hope for the best.
 
However, as you found, terminal installs are usually the best way if all else fails.
 

Only drawback to that is that I have a Chromecast, and that requires Chrome, not Firefox. Apparently there are issues with that still..
Not a killer. I have the Wii and smartphone for sending Netflix to the TV. But I wish Netflix would just release a Linux version. ;-)

Have you installed Chrome? If you go to the Chrome download page it should automatically give you the option to download the 32 or 64 bit version for debian systems. Click download and it should download the .deb file. Simply open it and the package manager will install it.

[CritAnime]

Oh yeah.
I have Chrome and that works and the Chromecast plugin.
I can send youtube or whatever to my Chromecast from my MINT box.
 
I just can't send Netflix, as Netflix doesn't run in Chrome (or any native browser) on Linux.
There is a way to get the Windows version of Firefox to work and I've done that, but that version doesn't support the Chromecast from Netflix.
The Windows version of Chrome does, but I haven't seen anyone that has the Windows version of Chrome running with the Chromecast extension and Netflix.
Most people seem to just run a VM for that, but I'm trying to go without a VM.
 
Well, I just got Netflix running in my Linux native Chrome browser using Pipelight, which is nice..But still no Chromecast option in Netflix. I'm guessing the pipelight extension doesn't talk to the native Chromecast extension. Still, closer.. ;-)
 
 
desiv

I have taken a look at the Ubuntu knowledge base and this came up.
 http://askubuntu.com/questions/324236/how-can-i-use-chromecast
 
Dunno if the second answer helps.

[CritAnime]

Yep, that's what I did to get Netflix working in native Chrome on my Linux MINT box.
That works...   As does Netflix Player, which is basically Windows Firefox in WINE.
So, I have 2 methods of watching Netflix on Linux.

But neither of those support sending Netflix to the Chromecast.
Not a biggie, but something that worked in XP.

Just found another minor issue, but fixed (kind of) it.

My SD card reader (built in) wasn't working..
Turns out, the reader in the DELL is PCI based and supports SD AND XD.
Apparently those drivers don't like each other..
So I had to blacklist the XD driver, and now the SD cards work great.  As I don't have any XD cards, its not a loss to me.

I could modprobe -r the SD driver and modprobe the XD driver if I wanted XD.  That would work, but not quite as simple as Windows.  Still no big deal tho..

So far, so good..

desiv
(Just backed up my Raspberry Pi SD card using DD )   :-)

Out of curiosity did you try to install the desktop client for Netflix?

run these in terminal.

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sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop

I don't know if this might help with teh Chromecast thing.

[CritAnime]

Yep,
I did that.
 
Netflix works.
 
It's just chromecast from Netflix that doesn't.
And chromecast from Chrome browser works, but not with Netflix.
 
desiv

Fair enough. I didn't know if by installing this bit of software that it would help with the streaming.
 
This was going to be my next trick to try.

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iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 32768:61000 -j ACCEPT

See if opening some ports would help.

[CritAnime]

Yep,
pretty standard for any OS really.
That's why separation between your user and you your admin level rights on the box is so important.

That RM command would still be painful, but not nearly as painful if you aren't root. (or run it with sudo, which generally asks for a password)

desiv
Admin:  Make me a sandwich.
User:  No, make it yourself.
Admin: sudo Make me a sandwich.
User:  OK.

:roflmao:

To be fair most of the nasty commands now need sudo to run. Or at the very least some sort of enhanced privliges. I have noticed very few modern Linux distributions allowing you to set a root password beyond the sort of heavy duty distributions such as Red Hat.

But it is always wise to check what a command does if you get it off some random thread.

[CritAnime]

Well doing a quick search I found this article which helps explain the Ubuntu system monitor, but it does not tell of any keyboard shortcuts in case the mouse is frozen. It does'nt it mention if you can end specific programs.

open a terminal window (ctrl+alt+t) then do killall firefox in the cli. If it complains the stick sudo infront of it. So long as you know the terminal command to run a program you can kill it the by apending killall infront of it. If not you can do a check using top or ps.
 
I reall like htop, which is a enhanced veriosn of top, for doing process management in terminal. It gives clear info on what state the system is in and gives a breakdown of running processes on both user and root. If you are on a debian/ubuntu system simply do sudo apt-get install htop and bingo bango it is done. To run type htop in a terminal and off it goes. If you need enhanced privlidges for something stick sudo infront of it.
 

[CritAnime]

And with that, we get a quick lesson as to why so many people are sticking with Windows.
For God's sake, why isn't there an app for this that doesn't require the use of a terminal?
I feel like I'm back in the '80s with crap like this.

There are numerous tools available, just like there is in Windows. Showing someone the Teminal way of doing things is not heresy towards a gui way. But if something does go wrong with the gui then terminal will be the way to go.
 

And in time you'll be saying that about 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04 or whatever version. This idea that a new version is put out every 6 months is madness, although better than the distro's who are on a rolling update. THATs like playing Russian roulette, with every update you get everyday.
 
All distro's are on this hamster wheel to up the version number that stability is secondary to having the latest. And YOU get to be the guinea pig for every new version.

Someone needs to take some chillout time. You do know the difference between Ubuntu release models don't you? Such as LTS and standard releases?
 
They make it pretty clear what the difference is between releases.