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The "Linux questions (and other stuff)" thread

Ok... as a linux novice... (i'm a mainly windows guy) I have a quick question.

With the great windows XP support switch off later this year, theres a large chunk of family members who need to stop using it.. and based on hardware win7/8 probably isn't worth it.

I'm running Ubuntu on a couple of PCs at home, and so thats my stock answer for 'what to do instead' if people aren't going to buy new hardware. However, is stock ubuntu the best choice for people to be running?

Ideally we're going to need something that linux newbies can get going with nearly straight out of the box, and without calling me ;)

any thoughts?
 
psionandy said:
Ideally we're going to need something that linux newbies can get going with nearly straight out of the box
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Any of the major distros will be similar. I think Mint would be easier coming from XP, but like someone said in http://androidforums.com/computers/814310-old-computer-can-i-install-linux.html, ask 10 people and you get 11 answers. ;)

and without calling me ;)
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Now you know *that's* not going to happen, right? ;)

They will need to understand about the software repositories to get programs and the basic menus, but everything else will be very familiar. Chrome, Firefox or Opera are all the same. If they were using iExplorer, it's about time they dumped it anyway. If they were using outlook express or some lightweight email client then the default email application should be fine. If they were heavy Outlook users then you should look at Thunderbird.

The most questions you will get are "Where's that file I just saved?" Or "how do i find my pictures?" Windows, OS X or linux, it's all computer 101.
 
psionandy said:
I'm running Ubuntu on a couple of PCs at home, and so thats my stock answer for 'what to do instead' if people aren't going to buy new hardware. However, is stock ubuntu the best choice for people to be running?

Ideally we're going to need something that linux newbies can get going with nearly straight out of the box, and without calling me ;)

any thoughts?
Click to expand...

XP isn't going to evaporate off people's computers overnight or anything; and a lot of users will continue using their machines as-is. They will will just no longer receive any more updates.

With that said, any who wish to switch to a stable, maintained operating system with a shorter learning curve might look at an Ubuntu variant such as Lubuntu or Mint (a fork of Ubuntu).

Unfortunately, the sheer amount of choice in the Linux offerings can be overwhelming, as you no doubt are aware.

I would recommend at least downloading a couple distributions and trying them out live (off the disc, but not installing), to get a feel for the interface(s) so that you can advise on a case-by-case basis.
 
psionandy said:
Ok... as a linux novice... (i'm a mainly windows guy) I have a quick question.

With the great windows XP support switch off later this year, theres a large chunk of family members who need to stop using it.. and based on hardware win7/8 probably isn't worth it.

I'm running Ubuntu on a couple of PCs at home, and so thats my stock answer for 'what to do instead' if people aren't going to buy new hardware. However, is stock ubuntu the best choice for people to be running?

Ideally we're going to need something that linux newbies can get going with nearly straight out of the box, and without calling me ;)

any thoughts?
Click to expand...
There are so many Linux distros these days, it's hard to keep up with all of them and single out any one as 'the best' for newbies. I'm very partial to Kubuntu, which is basically Ubuntu with KDE as its desktop environment, and believe that it's now so easy to install and run, that ANYONE should be able to do it. I've converted many people to Linux by getting them to try Kubuntu, and they've all loved it. My mother had never used anything but micro$oft stuff, until I wiped her drive and put Kubuntu on it. She loved it. She used it daily to play games, surf the web, e-mail, journal, view and print photos, and lots of other things, right up until she became bedridden. If she, her in 80s, could do it, anyone can! :D

Here's a pretty good list of Linux distros that can help narrow things down for you.

One thing I find myself stressing lately is this: Converts need to understand that Linux is a DIFFERENT operating system and, therefore, apps they're used to using are not MEANT to run on it. There are Linux equivalents of just about everything they're used to, so instead of thinking in terms of "but I need to run [fill in the blank]!", they should be thinking, "which Linux program replaces [fill in the blank]?" If it's clear to them from the get-go that they're not going to be using Word or Internet Exploder or whatever, they'll be fine.
 
Thanks for that.. I've got a usb stick built with Yumi (YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator | USB Pen Drive Linux) on it and so I can test drive most of the Distro's

My wife, and (soon to be) 7 year old have both been using ubuntu for the last few years, without any problems. Its amazing how much linux has progressed over the last few years.

I know windows XP isn't going to die.. but as its going to get less and less secure with every passing hour past the support switch off i'd feel guilty about letting some people use it after that time. So I thought I'd play about with some now, before some of the inlaws get themselves in a flap.
 
Well, I am betting that once people get used to having several desktops to switch between, they will no longer want to settle for Windows.
 
Just updated from OpenSuse 12.3 to 13.1. Its pretty good I'm really enjoying it. Making the move that I just made has changed the way I have my computers set up. I am only using the laptop as an actual laptop and not as a desktop.
 
Any ideas? I've tried all combinations of Ubuntu 12 & 13, The latest Mint & Xubuntu 12 & 13 . I've used YUMI, unetbootin and Universal USB Installer and my netbook refuses to boot from usb to install Linux.

YUMI will give me a boot menu, but when I select my distro, dependant on distro, it will tell me "Boot error" and hang, or I'll get a command prompt with

Code: 
boot:

Pressing any key gives me an error along the lines of "Cannot find boot image" (sorry, I can't remember exactly.

A combination of Ubuntu 13 & YUMI gives me the following:

Code: 
Syslinux 4.07 2013-07-25 Copyright 1994-2013
Unknown keyword in configuration file:M4UC (then a few weird characters
No DEFAULT or UI Configuration directive found!
Boot:

Again, typing anything gives an error message along the lines of cannot find boot image.

Any ideas?
 
I've consulted Rube Goldberg and he suggested the following ...

Got a spare hard drive that will fit in the netbook? (or use the existing one if there's nothing on it you want to save).

Take it out and using an SATA (IDE? :eek:) to USB adapter hook it up to a working PC and wipe out all the partitions. Then create a 4 GB partition just to make sure you have enough room for the distro and use unetbootin (or one of the other utilities) to make that partition a bootable install disk. Then put it back in your netbook ans see if it will boot. If so, then see if you can install the full distro to the empty space on the rest of the drive. If you get that far, you can then recover the original 4 GB (or not if you don't want to.)

Hey, it's a shot. I've seen stranger things work. ;)

Now I'm going to take my meds and see if I can come up with something else.
 
What system are you burning the disk on? Is it the Netbook in question? I've always used dd to burn my images with. I think there is a windows version you could try.

Good news is even though the thumbs are giving you trouble it does look like it will boot from usb.
 
I don't have another disk to try with, but my next port of call was another USB stick (this was a cheapo via Amazon) or an external DVD Drive, they're only about a tenner.

The issue with an external DVD is that it's more money spent I'm going to get questioned about and asked why a cheap netbook is starting to cost so much (already bought a mouse, fancy bag and another battery).

Partitioning my main disk sounds like a good idea, but taking it out doesn't (I'm lazy/don't have time/can't be bothered). Is there a way to create a 2nd partition from within windows and boot from that?

Edit, just seen your response Arg. I'm using my the netbook with Windows 7 starter on it. I'll give it a go on my main PC and see if that makes a difference. Or do you have any other suggestions?
 
Are you running Win7 on that netbook?

EDIT: You just answered that with your edit :p

You can shrink your existing partition if you right-click on "computer" and select manage>disk management and then right click your windows partition and choose shrink.

I don't think Windows' bootloader is smart enough to see another bootable partition without hacking it.
 
Not entirely true. If you install another copy of Windows on another bootable partition on the same drive, it'll definitely see it and give you a boot menu to work with.

It needs tinkering to get it chainload to grub, but that's because of Microsoft's animosity towards Linux.
 
I wonder if it's an issue with the USB Stick? No distro will load and I'm getting the same sort of errors when I try booting from USB on my laptop.

Also tried the live gparted iso, and it just gave me a command prompt with the words boot error. If I pressed any key, it booted in to windows.

How much tinkering is involved to partition and get it to boot from that partition?

I basically bought the netbook to tether to my phone and while away a long boring night shift with a bit of AF & maybe the occasional game of Football Manager. I can do that with it in its current form so if there's a lot of work involved, I might just leave it.
 
El Presidente said:
I wonder if it's an issue with the USB Stick? No distro will load and I'm getting the same sort of errors when I try booting from USB on my laptop.
Click to expand...

It might be. I had a few HP flash drives that wouldn't boot, but the sandisk or kingston sticks had no problem at all.

Before you go fussing with the partitions, give a different stick a try.
 
Partitions shouldn't cause a correctly made USB Linux stick not to boot. Could be something with the USB stick if nothing is working or is giving horrible errors. As Lunatic already suggested try a different brand, like Kingston or Sandisk.
 
mikedt said:
Partitions shouldn't cause a correctly made USB Linux stick not to boot. Could be something with the USB stick if nothing is working or is giving horrible errors. As Lunatic already suggested try a different brand, like Kingston or Sandisk.
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I've not touched partitions, repartitioning was my next thought after a USB stick.

According to what I could find on Google it's either sorted by renaming some files and folders, formatting to FAT16 or using a different USB disk. If I'm in town today, I'll pick one up.
 
argedion said:
I think its your usb as well.
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It certainly was, I picked up a new one and I'm running Ubuntu from USB at the moment. :)

I've had Mint and Ubuntu on my laptop before, so wouldn't mind trying something new for the netbook.

What's the deal with stuff like Kubuntu/Xubuntu? From what I can see, they're just ubuntu, but with differing GUI's?

Are there any other distros that are worth a punt?

I know I'll get a few different answers.
 
I like OpenSuse over any of the *buntu distro's. I have pretty good luck with it and its gotten all my hardware.

On another note. I have stopped dual booting from the same hard disk. Reasons being that if something happens to the hard drive then I can not access either OS. This is not good. Yeah I can always boot a live cd to backup what I need to if the drive is cooperating. So I started using an external usb drive to run other distro's from to see how they work with my stuff. This is really good for trying out beta versions of my favorite distro OpenSuse. Also if something does happen to my main system I have a backup system to allow me to try and fix what is ailing my computer or atleast backup everything so I can do a reinstall.
 
argedion said:
I like OpenSuse over any of the *buntu distro's. I have pretty good luck with it and its gotten all my hardware.
Click to expand...
Then you would like Mageia very well, since it's an RPM distro and KDE is the default environment. If you get a chance, check it out sometime.

Install and booting from an external drive is a good idea also, in fact, I'm thinking about making a partition on my current ext. drive for Fedora maybe.

Thnx.
 
Have some Gimp hints:
[URL="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/perform-7-awesome-photoshop-tricks-gimp/#8217;s%20possible,%20thanks%20to%20The%20GIMP.%20The%20GNU%20Image%20Manipulation%20Program,%20or%20GIMP,%20is%20a%20capable%20open%20source%20and%20free%20alternative%20to%20Photoshop.%20While%20it
 
saptech said:
Then you would like Mageia very well, since it's an RPM distro and KDE is the default environment. If you get a chance, check it out sometime.

Install and booting from an external drive is a good idea also, in fact, I'm thinking about making a partition on my current ext. drive for Fedora maybe.

Thnx.
Click to expand...

I downloaded and ran the live edition of 4b2 it seems to be ok I haven't had a chance to play with it to much. Fedora is a decent distro I rarely had problems with it I just like the way OpenSuse works a tad better.
 
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