Is anybody else using Linux?

[Shut Up Legs]

Hooray! Yesterday while still running the dual-boot setup, Linux would take a ridiculously long time to bootup, several minutes. Just now, on the fresh Linux-only install, the desktop PC took 20 seconds to go from blank screen to Linux desktop. Now that's what I expected with this fairly new PC!

 

[steve50]

Anybody getting nagged by microsoft to install windows 10 can download this, GWX control panel, download the "stand alone" version and then you can remove the windows 10 nag and prevent windows ten installation permanently. http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Now I've copied my old Firefox profile from an external backup disk, and am using CycleChat on the desktop Linux PC. Much better. What I need to do now is use a saucepan to heat up some water, since the kettle is dead, and have a coffee. It's only 7:15am and I could really use a coffee.

By the way, good link, @steve50 . It's a pity people have to resort to 3rd-party apps to remove Microsoft's pushy software.

 

[martint235]

Last night, I tried the Linux-only setup on my desktop PC, only to find that the installer hung and wouldn't respond for hours. I let it run that long, just in case it was just too busy to update its progress bar, but no luck. This morning (it's currently 6:40am here), I booted the PC on the Linux install DVD again, and went over to the kettle to turn it on for a nice steaming hot cup of coffee, and the house power went out. It seems that my kettle has decided not to work properly anymore! So, after turning the safety switch back on (no fuses to replace, fortunately), I'm now running the Linux install again.

Yesterday, I'd got all fancy and created a comprehensive manual partitioning scheme that covered my 3 internal hard disks, and had a different partition for /boot, /, /root, /tmp, /home, plus 2 larger partitions to be mounted as /data and /data2. It looks like the installer choked on it, though. Today, I just selected the option "Guided - use entire disk and setup LVM", which should allow me to tinker with partition setups later on, when Linux is up and running nicely.

Fortunately, I have 2 PCs, a laptop (which I'm typing on now), and a desktop, so I can browse the internet (minus coffee! ), while the installer runs. Speaking of which: it's just showed me the "Restart now" message, so it's made good progress.

Sounds complicated. I've got two 1TB drives, drive one runs Windows 10, drive 2 had 150gb as root and 250gb as /home. Rest of drive 2 is backup to drive one.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just moved my /home directory from the boot disk (which is an SSD with 256GB) to my 2nd disk, a non-SSD with 1.8TB. That was a learning experience. Several times, I got the /etc/fstab entry wrong, and the PC wouldn't even boot up properly, and I thought I'd stuffed it up completely.

 

[steve50]

Sounds complicated. I've got two 1TB drives, drive one runs Windows 10, drive 2 had 150gb as root and 250gb as /home. Rest of drive 2 is backup to drive one.

You are running windows 10................good luck with that.
Microsoft are now monitoring everything you do on your own computer including which software you are using,
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...crosofts-intrusive-terms-of-use-10432300.html

http://bgr.com/2015/07/31/windows-10-upgrade-spying-how-to-opt-out/

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/is-windows-10-spying-you-microsoft-finally-speaks-out-1305307

But you can disable / stop data collection from your Pc,
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/how-to-keep-windows-10-from-spying-on-you-125730399429.html

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Now I just created two 1.7TB partitions on my (approx.) 8TB internal hard disk, and set them up to automount to 2 new root-level directories. Unfortunately, Linux doesn't recognise the full disk, so I could only use half of it for now. I'll have to investigate this and find out if it's possible to use the full disk.

 

[ColinJ]

The friend whose laptop I put Lubuntu on told me that Firefox was really slow to load last week so I am going to have to take another look at the machine. Firefox was loading faster on that system than it does in Windows on the laptop I am using.

I suppose it is possible that Lubuntu was updating itself at the time. I can't remember if I set it up to do that automatically. I know I intended to because my friend was hopeless at doing manual updates in Windows. She would blithely ignore every popup warning her of dire consequences of not doing security updates.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Now I just created two 1.7TB partitions on my (approx.) 8TB internal hard disk, and set them up to automount to 2 new root-level directories. Unfortunately, Linux doesn't recognise the full disk, so I could only use half of it for now. I'll have to investigate this and find out if it's possible to use the full disk.

I realised why I can't see more than half of the 8TB internal disk: it's because I installed 32bit Linux Mint, not 64bit. When I installed a 64bit version on the laptop PC last year sometime, I couldn't get the printer driver working for my Canon printer. So this time, I decided to play it safe and just stick with 32bit for now. There may be some workaround that will allow me to use the full disk, I'll just have to do some research on it.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just improved my Linux Mint startup time from pre-boot blank screen to Linux desktop showing, from about 2 minutes down to less than half a minute. I realised it was most likely taking a while to mount the filesystem on a 5TB external backup disk that I'd kept connected, so I shutdown, disconnected it, then restarted, et voila! Super-fast startup.

 

[steve50]

I realised why I can't see more than half of the 8TB internal disk: it's because I installed 32bit Linux Mint, not 64bit. When I installed a 64bit version on the laptop PC last year sometime, I couldn't get the printer driver working for my Canon printer. So this time, I decided to play it safe and just stick with 32bit for now. There may be some workaround that will allow me to use the full disk, I'll just have to do some research on it.

Thats the only problem i have found with linux, sometimes you can have difficulties finding drivers, easiest way round it is to install linux within windows (dual boot)
as this pretty much guarantees everything will work. I had issues getting the wireless to work on an old lenovo laptop running linux, I installed basic windows the linux and bingo, all is well.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Thats the only problem i have found with linux, sometimes you can have difficulties finding drivers, easiest way round it is to install linux within windows (dual boot)
as this pretty much guarantees everything will work. I had issues getting the wireless to work on an old lenovo laptop running linux, I installed basic windows the linux and bingo, all is well.

Another option is to install / emulate Windows within Linux (e.g. WINE, VirtualBox). I haven't tried printing from a Windows app running under WINE, but I did use WINE a bit last year.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I realised why I can't see more than half of the 8TB internal disk: it's because I installed 32bit Linux Mint, not 64bit. When I installed a 64bit version on the laptop PC last year sometime, I couldn't get the printer driver working for my Canon printer. So this time, I decided to play it safe and just stick with 32bit for now. There may be some workaround that will allow me to use the full disk, I'll just have to do some research on it.

Cannon printers have a reputation for not working well with a linux setup, HP are the printers that are usually recommended. I always thought that there was a limit to how big a drive that 32 bit can see.

 

[Rasmus]

My windows borked out on me on Friday, crashed heavily in the middle of playing a game, and now stuck in a never-ending autorecovery cycle.

Probably could fix it with my recovery dvd, but I've finally decided to try linux full-time (at home at least, getting new windows 10 laptop at work tomorrow). Eurosport player has been found to run well using pipelight, and I was spending way too much time in Fallout 4 anyway...

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Cannon printers have a reputation for not working well with a linux setup, HP are the printers that are usually recommended. I always thought that there was a limit to how big a drive that 32 bit can see.

Agreed, but the Canon printer I have is cheap, reliable and prints with high-quality. HP printers have a reputation for being not too user-friendly, particularly their printer-management software. I'm happy to stick with 32 bit Linux for now: I can always change it later on.