Linux why?

Thanks, Pete that was my first try:oops: :$

Had the Mate version updated and running but unable to access rest of HDD.

Now *ucking about with Hirens etc, so near but so far but will keep trying for a day or two!
sorry you're having hassle I cant advise really I'm not exactly an expert I just put the disc in and loaded it up
I did also try Ubuntu but that wouldn't fully install so tried mint
I did copy all of the files off and then installed just the Linux
I didn't try to split up the hard drive between xp and Linux
I did read somewhere that the boot disk itself can cause problems if there's any faults on it, I bought 3 Linux boot disks ready made from ebay for £2.50 to save messing about
 
sorry you're having hassle I cant advise really I'm not exactly an expert I just put the disc in and loaded it up
I did also try Ubuntu but that wouldn't fully install so tried mint
I did copy all of the files off and then installed just the Linux
I didn't try to split up the hard drive between xp and Linux
I did read somewhere that the boot disk itself can cause problems if there's any faults on it, I bought 3 Linux boot disks ready made from ebay for £2.50 to save messing about

I had a similar experience to Pete, I tried a number of distro's for my netbook running XP, some worked perfectly, some worked a bit and some just wouldn't work at all. What I did was make a bootable USB version using Universal USB Installer and tried that first, a quick and relatively painless way of finding keepers and duds. Then when I found one I liked I installed it from the USB and made the Netbook a dual boot.

I ended up going with Mint, originally Mint15 but now Mint16 Cinammon and it works fine on my Samsung NC10, especially for what I use it for which is just Internet and watching films when I'm travelling.

Should have said my reasons for trying Linux where firstly that I might be using it at work in the near future and secondly to have an alternative to the unsupported XP on my netbook which isn't worth upgrading to W7/8 even if it could be
 
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Mike,
When you say unable to access rest of HDD, have you dual booted with a Windows partition?
 
Update on this.

Crunchbang is still going strong on the Netbook.
Linux Mint 17 with Cinnamon is now dual booting with Windows 8.1 on the desktop. Working out how to get UEFI to play nice was a ball ache. But easy when you know how.
Then I had some graphics issues (NVidia!) and they are now sorted too.

Here is a brief synopsis on what I did to get Linux Mint 17 dual booting:
http://wiki.dcadden.co.uk/index.php/IT:LinuxMintUEFI_Installaion

We've had a few teething problems but it's nice and stable now. I've been using it with VM Box to create a virtualised Windows Server test bed and it's all been pretty faultless so far.

I'm looking forward to giving Darktable a whirl as/when I find time.



Still shouldn't take 10 mins. Where are you timing to and from?
I'm timing from power on until having a usable system with an application (Microsoft Word) loaded and ready to use. I've stripped quite a bit off it now (Creative Cloud for instance) but still got some to go.
Current time to boot (as per above): 4 minutes 15 seconds.

It's running:
Dropbox
StudioPlus
TeamViewer
iTunes and associated gubbins
Aconis True Image
F-Secure
VMWare Player
SQL Server 2005 (Express)
Nikon Message Centre


Once it's up and running, something seems to be running at 50% CPU - it's a dllhost.exe / 32 bit. A quick Google suggests that it's a Win7 process trying to render movie/wav thumbnail previews.
 
From my view, we're heading in a direction when ultimately the OS has less and less of an impact.

Every new system / service we deploy for 'end users' now is web based; usually externally hosted and requires nothing more than a browser. This is true of *most* of our core systems and when will be the case when we mop up the stragglers.
As the web based 'office' apps get better (and this is a continual process), We've opted for Google, but both Microsoft and Apple's offerings work well too, and their offline capability is now at a workable level too. Ultimately these tools don't have as many bells and whistles as the desktop products, but, in my opinion at least, they more than make up for this in terms of collaborative capability.

Combine this with the likes of Google Drive (or it's equivalent), and the 'infrastructure-less' office becomes a possibility.

For my day job, it means I can access and work on my documents, email and main apps from anywhere, on any device that supports chrome, instantly. Everything is available to me anywhere I have a device and the internet. Most things are available even if I don't have the internet; no pre planning - no hand-off, just grab, go and use. I bloody love the collaboration features - working on documents, sheets or presentations interactively with others is so much easier, and given this is such a huge element of my job, I'm in 7th heaven. This device 'freedom' is becoming more and more key for many people - new blood with start to expect it.

This won't work for everyone obviously. Today (and into the future) there are still restrictions, and depending on your job. For the more technical elements of our business we have specific solutions what would not work in this way - they probably never could, but for a great deal of 'office' based people, it's a very interesting direction to push.
 
I agree it will happen. But we are in a long transition phase now. It has to be fast enough. All documents have to be available offline unless you can guarantee an internet connection. It has work on all browsers. The usability must be as good.
For me it still gets a big "not there yet" And Google spreadsheets are way too clumsy. Only in desperate cases.
 
i'm talking about a machine that came with W7 preinstalled (no disks ) but suffered a borked hard drive - having bought a new HDD i then needed a new 64 bit operating system - for which MS wanted to charge me £££ - linux was an obvious alternative
If you had a bit more knowledge you would realise the first couple of things thing you do with a new PC that is sold without OS disks is to 1. create a recovery\repair disk. 2. copy the .wim image file from the recovery partition to an external hard drive. Now if the hard drive dies you can restore your PC to oob state. Simple.
 
Funny this thread pops up... I was only thinking about posting to it a couple of hours ago.

Due to Glastonbury streaming a load of stuff, I thought I'd get the browser fully working (i.e. so I can get it started within xbmc) on our HTPC (i3-4xxx CPU). BBC content needs a flash player, so off I go to get it installed. I installed it, browser didn't see it. Lots of googling & lots of commands at the command line together with pulling my hair out and 2 hours had passed. At this point I figured it was time to do a distro upgrade (I was running Ubuntu 13.10 which has run out of support and I figured it was time I upgraded to 14.04LTS). Half an hour later and the system is updated - yay! A reboot later and no xbmc... what??? It turns out in the upgrade, one of the libraries it was compiled against had been dumped for a newer version (the library was there, just at version 1.10 vs the "required" 1.8). Pulling the latest pre-compiled version of xbmc and it still wasn't working with the same error. So... git clone the xbmc source code, configure and make and go and have a drink and yup... now fully working.

Now back to flash player. Nope - still not there. I ended up installing Google Chrome for linux (I was trying to use Firefox and Chromium). Google Chrome for Linux comes with their version of flash integrated. Now working - 20 hours after I first started looking at it....
 
Sorry for digging up an old thread.
I tried Linux on my old laptop recently and could not get on with it. I am now loading Zorin on it.
 
Which one did you try?

(Zorin is a Linux distro specifically designed to look like Windows)
 
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It's a disc my uncle dropped off, OS6. The laptop wont be used much.

I had Ubuntu Mate on it before, but it wasn't playing ball ... no idea if that's an outdated system
 
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Ubuntu Mate should be OK. It has only been available for a year or so.
Zorin is based on Ubuntu too. Which is exceptionally good at reinvigorating all sorts of old PC's.
 
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I was using UM while working at various locations around the UK with unreliable wifi and couldn't get updates or search for help. This morning was the first time I tried it at home and the internet still dropped out with it, although it was fine before with Windows and seems fine with Zorin. At least Zorin's layout is more familiar :)
 
I have tried many a distro

I always come back to mint or xubuntu on low end systems or Ubuntu on my desktop.
 
Now I've recently decided to once again dual boot my desktop PC so I can continue to keep the Windows partition strictly for photo editing. After all, I need a more ergonomic alternative to the CrunchBang netbook now the laptop is gone for some of the tasks I do. And Linux is looking like the perfect choice.

I'll be happy to report how I get on....

Have you thought about using VMs?

I'm writing this in a stripped down XP Pro running in VirtualBox with no problems.

Seems to me to be the best solution al round.
.
 
Have you thought about using VMs?

I'm writing this in a stripped down XP Pro running in VirtualBox with no problems.

Seems to me to be the best solution al round.
.
+1 for VirtualBox which, amongst other reasons, I use to print from Mac to my laser printer which has no satisfactory Mac driver. You can get free virtual machines from Microsoft for Windows XP, 7 and 10 - they are time limited but you can avoid reinstalling them by running VirtualBox snapshots --which is recommended by Microsoft ;-) .

Oh and edited to plug Linux Mint Cinnamon to which I am gradually converting the machines used buy my tech challenged relatives/friends so I don't have to struggle with their broken Windows installations - they only use email, browsing photo viewing etc and mostly don't notice any difference.
 
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Have you thought about using VMs?

I'm writing this in a stripped down XP Pro running in VirtualBox with no problems.

Seems to me to be the best solution al round.
.


2 years since I wrote that post!

Including VMs, I've 9 boxes at home running Linux. 5 are servers:
- main server | Ubuntu
- backup server | Ubuntu
- media server (virtual) | Ubuntu
- media player | Openelec
- certificate authority (virtual) | Ubuntu
- Jenkins/Mono build server | Debian
- always-on brix | Linux Mint
- desktop (dual boot) | Linux Mint
- laptop (dual boot) | Linux Mint

There are 3 devices in total, running Windows, although I'm using Linux >95% of the time
I'll be eventually moving away from Linux Mint/Ubuntu due to various gripes with Canonical about package maintenance.
 
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I have:

main server - debian (VM)
development server - debian (VM)
testing server - debian (VM)
router - FreeBSD (VM)

desktop (email, games, surfing, photos etc) - W10
desktop (development) - W10

The VMs run under ESXi on an R710 which is always on except when I have guests as it's in my spare room / study. There are some Windows VMs as well.
I use my Mac Mini (running Windows) for streaming media from the Internet, as it's compact and quiet. I don't have a media server as I can't figure out why I need one :o
 
I have:
The VMs run under ESXi on an R710 which is always on except when I have guests as it's in my spare room / study. There are some Windows VMs as well.
I use my Mac Mini (running Windows) for streaming media from the Internet, as it's compact and quiet. I don't have a media server as I can't figure out why I need one :eek:

I bet that R710 is power hungry! One of my big things is keeping the energy footprint of all the 'always on' kit to an absolute minimum. We currently running at around ~70W of standby power consumption for the computery stuffs, which includes UPS, two switches, two 'hubs' in modem only mode and a Wireless Access Point.

The media server came about because we were on a very slow aDSL connection and streaming was sometimes problematic. Even now, it's generally a better experience than using Netflix/Amazon Prime/NowTV/Spotify etc. - but that's mainly down to their UI, choice of titles and privacy policies.
 
I've managed to cut down my "proper" computers down to one and it only runs windows as a means of launching LR and Steam. Even those are used fairly rarely.

When I had more time and my hobby was computing I had a totally silent epia running as a thin client with full gui interface to a much more powerful server running headless in a cupboard where the noise wasn't an issue and the waste heat was useful for drying clothes. I had a silent media centre controlled by the TV remote streaming video, firewall running of CF cards all kinds of fairly stuff for the time. I really did hate fan noise thinking about it.

Now the tech has caught up, embedded stuff is cheap, Android is perfectly usable for 99% of my computer use and if I ever get a darkroom set up I could probably bin the big computer and just have a ps4 gathering dust in the corner for my bi-annual gaming binges.

I really wish stuff like the raspberry Pi had come out a decade ago, I'd have been all over that.
 
Just had my Mint Cinnamon install go belly up after a couple of years use. I've a feeling something has been corrupted on the disc (everything is backed up) but it's irritating that I can't seem to fix it in a way that's 'obvious'. Going to pop Mint XFCE on their briefly and see how that does, before doing a wipe/reinstall & restore, possibly on a new HDD.

The only thigs I'm concerned about losing are a few recent emails now, though I wish Mozilla wouldn't muck about with how to restore data like they have recently.
 
Just had my Mint Cinnamon install go belly up after a couple of years use. I've a feeling something has been corrupted on the disc (everything is backed up) but it's irritating that I can't seem to fix it in a way that's 'obvious'. Going to pop Mint XFCE on their briefly and see how that does, before doing a wipe/reinstall & restore, possibly on a new HDD.

The only thigs I'm concerned about losing are a few recent emails now, though I wish Mozilla wouldn't muck about with how to restore data like they have recently.
I'm glad I went with xfce rather than cinnamon - it's pretty bare bones with no eye candy but I'm more interested in getting things done than having bells and whistles.
 
XCFE has been getting better these last few releases. But it's easy enough to switch back and forth. It's not a major commitment. Especially if you have you data on a separate partition.
 
I couldn't partition the drive to install LM XFCE - the artition management software warns of errors, never finishes scanning and crashes when you try to force a partition change. Pretty sure that disc has issues, which is a shame since it's only a couple of years old (WD 1TB green drive). The DVD with LM XFCE itself is fine, since I already used it live, then installed it on a testing drive to go in and recover data.

XCFE has been getting better these last few releases. But it's easy enough to switch back and forth. It's not a major commitment. Especially if you have you data on a separate partition.

XFCE used to be a little too basic, but Linux Lite OS did a really good version that I used on my travel laptop for a couple of years.
 
XCFE has been getting better these last few releases. But it's easy enough to switch back and forth. It's not a major commitment. Especially if you have you data on a separate partition.
I always put the /home directory on a separate partition, makes life so much easier when things go wrong.
 
Pretty sure that disc has issues, which is a shame since it's only a couple of years old (WD 1TB green drive).
Drives usually have a 3 to 5 year warranty. Go to the WD website and look for warranty returns.https://support.wdc.com/Warranty/warrantyStatus.aspx
Enter the serial number. It will show you the date you bought it, and how long the warranty runs. And gives you instructions on how to send it for replacement. They don't need to see a receipt.
XFCE used to be a little too basic, but Linux Lite OS did a really good version that I used on my travel laptop for a couple of years.

I put Xubuntu (XFCE) on the family laptop a few years back, and they all use it without issues. And my 11 year old keeps discovering interesting programs, and does things I didn't know it could do.
 
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I couldn't partition the drive to install LM XFCE - the artition management software warns of errors, never finishes scanning and crashes when you try to force a partition change. Pretty sure that disc has issues, which is a shame since it's only a couple of years old (WD 1TB green drive). The DVD with LM XFCE itself is fine, since I already used it live, then installed it on a testing drive to go in and recover data.

The WD Green series had problems with Linux due to the Intellipark system which resulted in a short lifespan for the HDD. Not sure if this has been fixed yet - there was a software workaround IIRC.
 
Why? This is why ... My own hosting server...

hanoverian_uptime.png
 
Why? This is why ... My own hosting server...

View attachment 66286

That all? We have one at work that was last rebooted in 1997.

Personally I have Linux on my laptop as it really easily automates lots of tasks, I can use and abuse programmes like Lightworks, Natron, Darktable, GIMP, Imagemagick, FFMPEG with impunity and can easily create my own LUTs and things for playing with the technical side of digital photo/videography.
 
That all? We have one at work that was last rebooted in 1997.

Personally I have Linux on my laptop as it really easily automates lots of tasks, I can use and abuse programmes like Lightworks, Natron, Darktable, GIMP, Imagemagick, FFMPEG with impunity and can easily create my own LUTs and things for playing with the technical side of digital photo/videography.
LOL I only bought my server 790 days ago :)
 
Personally I have Linux on my laptop as it really easily automates lots of tasks,
Surely it's only "easy" for people who are computer trained or have studied some IT? As a normal user, would it be easy for me?
 
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Surely it's only "easy" for people who are computer trained or have studied some IT? As a normal user, would it be easy for me?
Yup, just copy and paste from stack overflow like all developers do :p
 
Easy means I can just get on and do it. And not having to do web searches and then trying to understand the geek jargon. And being reliant on someone. And then something doesn't work, or did it? Then trying to undo it all in the same way, copy and pasting yet another magic spell.
 
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Easy means I can just get on and do it. And not having to do web searches and then trying to understand the geek jargon. And being reliant on someone. And then something doesn't work, or did it? Then trying to undo it all in the same way, copy and pasting yet another magic spell.
Hire a PA :)
 
Ubuntu desktop is nice and user friendly. If it plays nice with your hardware (and chances are it will) then you should be able to just get on and use it with no magic spells - it should be no more difficult then, for example, learning to use OS X.
 
Mint XFCE is going to be very temporary after all: stupid sound issues with crackly and only a the front audio output working, probably driver related, that I'm not interested in fixing. Wonder what distro to try next?
 
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