There is a better way

[Mike]

Through all of the recent Windows / Internet Explorer hassles we've experienced, you've doubtless noticed Corley and myself discussing the use of Linux as an alternative operating system to Windows.

I use Linux because I am a tech junkie. I don't want to just be on the cutting edge of technology, I want to be on the bleeding edge. But I'm also frugal and I don't like spending money where I don't have to spend it. Microsoft can come up with a $120 upgrade to their latest operating system every 3-5 years, but who wants to spend $120? When OS X Leopard was upgraded to Snow Leopard, I dashed out and bought the upgrade disk. (For considerably less than $120, I might add) I was not impressed. I guess I am just not a big Apple fan. I know, about 16% of you just took me off your Christmas card list, but I'll try to live with the disappointment.

I use Linux, because it costs absolutely nothing. Some Linux distros update every six months, so you can be sure to stay on the edge without spending a dime. I've been known to install Beta versions of Ubuntu, just to have the latest and greatest running on my machine. I use Linux because I can download software to my machine at no cost. Some people get hung up on using a Windows-only program. Personally, I get hung up spending money for Windows programs. And if you think Windows programs can be expensive, try buying an equivalent for a Mac. I have come up with Linux equivalents of every Windows program I've ever needed. I'm not a graphics designer and find The GIMP can do more than I will ever need. So why do I need Photoshop? I always liked using IrfanView for resizing images, but Mirage works just as well. I never cared for Internet Explorer and always installed Firefox on my Windows machines. Firefox comes pre-installed on most Linux distros. I use Linux because I don't have to mess with things like anti-virus scripts, firewalls, malware, spyware and defragging hard drives.

People have always heard that Linux is for computer science geeks and runs on a Command Line Interface (CLI). Nothing could be further from the truth. I find CLI is faster for some steps, but I also go for days without opening a terminal window. Linux is not a monster, hiding under your bed. It is a very simple to install operating system that works quite well.

Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with Windows. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind -- driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to considering a change. Do you know what I'm talking about? Linux is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. Windows is the operating system that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. I have a pill in each hand. You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever Microsoft wants you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.

I'm going to insert some videos and some screenshots in some subsequent posts that will let you see how easy it is to get a copy of a Linux distro and how easy it is to install it on your hard drive. And the best part? You can install Linux right alongside Windows or OS X and select which operating system you want to run, when you boot your system. If you're a power gamer and can't give up your games, then I say keep them and enjoy them. And when you get ready to get online, boot into Linux, so you don't have to worry about crackers getting into your machine. There are three, dead-simple ways to install Linux alongside Windows, so you get the best of both worlds.

So? What is Linux?

[media]

 

[Mike]

This video discusses the use of an Ubuntu Live CD. Don't let the discussion about editing your BIOS frighten you away, most PC's will allow you to press a function key to change your boot sequence.

[media]

With a Live CD (and most Linux distros have them, so don't think you're stuck with using Ubuntu), you can boot into that version of Linux and get a feel for what things are like. Be forewarned, the entire operating system is loading modules in from that CD-ROM, so it will not run very fast. But you can open up Firefox, check to make sure you can access the InterWebz, verify you can play YouTube videos, etc.

If you like what you see and you want the freedom of choosing what operating system you want to run on your computer, stick around. You'll be amazed at how easily you can create a second choice.

 

[Mike]

This video shows a WUBI (Windows / UBuntu Installer) installation of Ubuntu. This is the simplest method, but not one I recommend to anyone who intends to use Linux on a regular basis. I don't want to confuse you yet, so just keep watching subsequent videos.

[media]

As you can see, Ubuntu gets installed in one big chunk, inside of Windows. When Ubuntu releases an update, your only option is to install the new installation over the top of your previous install, so you will lose any data you have saved.

 

[Mike]

Now you're going to see another way to install Ubuntu alongside Windows. This is still not my preferred method, but it will get you a very simple dual boot installation.

WARNING - Heed what he has to say about defragging your hard drive. This is a very key step. You're going to be scooting your Windows installation into a smaller partition, so you do not need a bunch of fragmented sectors wasting space. If you've been using your computer for any length of time at all, you might even want to give your defragging program a couple of hits at the drive, just to be sure you've freed up as much space as possible. If you are beig smart and defragging on a regular basis, the second pass will not be necessary.

[media]

You will see with this method of installation, you do get the option of migrating some documents from your Windows installation. So that can be handy, if you want to easily access things like pictures within your Linux installation.

 

[Mike]

Here, you will start to see some of the software alternatives to what you've installed in your Windows partition.

[media]

As you'll all know by now, I do recommend Firefox as a good browser. Mozilla also offers a full-featured e-mail client, called Thunderbird. That's all I've used for years. Thunderbird just works, period.

With the repositories I have enabled on this machine, my Software Manager has 32,725 packages available for installation. Now some of those might be support files for other programs or fonts or clip art, but there are still hundreds and hundreds of programs available. No trip to the refrigerator store and no being charged for software required. Look through the list and install whatever you like.

 

[Mike]

[media]

You can even run some Windows applications within Linux, if you really have the need to do so.

 

[Mike]

And if you just cannot get comfortable with running Linux, it's easy enough to remove.

[media]

 

[Mike]

Now here is the way I prefer to install Linux.

Step 1 is the same as mentioned before. Defrag the hard drive. Get everything stored on the drive scooted cheek by jowl, so there is no wasted space.

Step 2 is to shrink the Windows partition as far as you can. It depends on how big your hard drive is and how much you intend to use each operating system. I have a 250 gig HDD in one machine and I've allowed Windows to reside on 150 gig, with Linux getting only 100 gig. This machine is a tiny bit more spacious, with a 1 TB HDD, so I split the drive down the middle (as closely as I could) with Windows sitting on 470 gig and Linux on 446 gig. The rest is used as recovery partitions, etc. So shrink the Windows partition down as far as you like, remembering to give Linux something in the vicinity of 20 gig, minimum.

Now, watch this video and remember you are not dealing with an entire HDD, but merely an unused partition. In thie case of this machine, I shrunk Windows as far as it would allow, so I had a 446 gig unused partition.

[media]

I don't concern myself with a /boot partition. You can set one up, if you want GRUB to have a particular place to reside. I don't bother with it. GRUB will look over your installation and ten recommend a place where it would like to be installed. I just accept it knows more about where it should be than I ever will and allow it to do as it will.

Here is what this particular HDD looks like in GParted -

Everything above that red line is Windows 7, Dell's Recovery partition and their utility partition.

Everything below the red line if where the fun starts. As you can see, I have three partitions set up -

/ which is known as the root partition. This is where the Linux operating system and all my installed programs live. I've set aside approximately 20 gig for that partition, with barely 4.5 gig being used. But this is a relatively fresh install, so that number will creep up as I discover new programs I just cannot live without. I doubt it will ever exceed 10 gig, so that would be a safe size for a root partition.

/home which is where all of my data lives. If I save a picture to my computer, it goes into a /pictures directory, in the /home partition. I've set aside about 418 gig for that partition.

linux-swap is just that. Swap space if the machine would ever run low on memory. It was a bit wasteful to allow 8 gig for swap, but the machine has 8 gig of memory on it and it is a 64 bit operating system. So if I ever manage to load up 8 gig of RAM, there is another 8 gig of swap the operating system can use. When this machine hibernates, the system settings are stored in the swap space.

Now here's why I like to use this partitioning method. I had been running Linux Mint Debian Edition on this machine. And I smacked the LMDE install, big style. Since there was no need to worry about losing anything, I installed Linux Mint 10 Julia right over the LMDE install in the root partition. When I went through the install process, I told it to use that 20.32 gig root partition as root for the Julia install and I had GParted format that partition, cleaning everything off for Julia. I told it to continue using the 417.66 gig /home partition as the very same thing and that I did not want that partition formatted. I also left the swap space right where it was. So when the installer did its thing, it installed Julia at root and left all of my pictures, word processor files, text files, Web site files and music files alone. When Clem and the gang release Mint 11, I'll do the same thing, installing 11 where 10 used to be and leaving all my data alone.

This is why I am not a fan of using a WUBI install. With WUBI, you start using Linux and you realize you really like it, so you start saving some photos and some music files inside WUBI. But there is a new release of Ubuntu and you want to try out the new tricks it has. Your only option is to install the new version with WUBI, or to give the new version its own partition. Either way, you've lost all the data you've saved within WUBI. At one point, there was a way to take a WUBI install and make a normal install out of it, but it was riddled with problems.

If you do a simple side-by-side install of Linux, when it comes time to upgrade, you do another side-by-side install and all of your saved data is gone.

With my method, you are always going to be assured your data will be safe.

My first Linux install was a WUBI install of Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. I loved Linux, the moment I started using it and by the time 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon was released, I had learned how to do a proper dual boot installation with a root directory.

 

[Mike]

Of course there are still going to be people thinking that Linux is for computer science people and no one else. And besides, Windows has all that Aero stuff going on.

Uh-huh.

It's a little tough to see after resizing the image, but you can see the forum index page all rolled up in a ball on the right. On the left, you're seeing another desktop coming around the sphere. And if that's not good enough for you, how about -

Here, I'm rolling the sphere around the other direction to yet another desktop.

And if you were wondering, yes, there is a fourth desktop. I can run a browser on one desktop, an e-mail client on the second, a word processor on the third and a graphics program on the fourth. I rarely ever use the other desktops, but can you imagine hearing the boss coming down the hall, whilst you're browsing the forums? Click and you're suddenly on a desktop with your spreadsheet open. And that sphere? With a click I can make it a cylinder. With another click, it becomes a cube.

There are hundreds of Linux distributions (distros) out there. Ubuntu is the most popular and has an enormous support forum site. Personally, I like to use Linux Mint, as it always seems to work, straight out of the tin. Sometimes with other distros, you might have to find the right driver for a sound card, or twiddle with the network settings to get a wireless card to work. Mandriva is a popular distro, as is openSUSE. PCLinuxOS is one I've never tried, but people say it is a softcore changeover for people who really want to stick with the Windows "feel". Fedora is popular and Debian is built like a rock. I'm a fan of using CentOS on servers and this site is running on CentOS. Most distros offer both a GNOME desktop environment and a KDE environment. I've pretty much always stuck with GNOME, myself. It's a Chevy / Ford battle, if you ask me. Some distros are available as a GNOME distro and a KDE distro, such as Ubuntu (GNOME) and Kubuntu (KDE). I really like the concept of Linux Mint Debian Edition, because updates roll into it as they are released, so you never have to download another .iso and do an install. LMDE is based on a testing version of Debian and I've had a couple of kernel upgrades that my machines have choked on, so I've moved away from it. Therein lies the beauty of running Linux. You get to choose what operating system you use, rather than the computer manufacturer just jamming something down your throat.

I hope some of you will look more closely at using Linux. It truly has a lot to offer and is getting more user-friendly by the day. With a bit of HDD space, you can make it peacefully co-exist with Windows. And it will provide you with much more security than you're ever going to find with Windows. There was a Linux virus in the wild about a year ago. Note I used the singular. As in one. The virus would allow a machine to be exploited, but it required the cracker to actually be sitting at your machine, to break into it. Scary business, eh? And there was a new kernel release within 24 hours that removed the exploit. I imagine you mind how I am always harping at Windows users to run CCleaner and Ad-Aware every day? Well, I don't run any of that stuff on my Linux machines. How much longer until you have to renew your virus scanner for another year? My Linux machines don't have virus scanners installed. I can buy beer with that money, not put it into some software developer's pocket.

About the only caveat to bear in mind is that Linux is not and never will be like Windows. Make a comment about wanting Linux to be like Windows and you'll likely get called out on it. Big Mac's aren't Whoppers. Coke isn't Pepsi. And Linux isn't Windows.

Linux is freedom.

 

[Telman2]

You're tempting me Mike but I've got a couple of basic questions I'd like to ask before I even try getting into these video's and strip a brain gear.

1. What do you need in the way of chip speed and memory for these systems to run on. I have an older laptop with windows XP that I quit using because it's so slow. Would the laptop run any better with a linux operating system on it?

2. If I have one computer with windows 7 and get the second one running with one of these linux systems can I network them?

Whether I end up using one of these systems or not I'd still like to thank you for posting your computer articles. I read everyone of them and while I'll never really understand computers I've got mine running a little better because of two programs I learned about from you, Ccleaner and Defraggler.

 

[Old Rotor Flap]

Mike, I read your original post and watched the first video.

From there, most everything will probably be over my head.

However, I agree with you on Microsoft - there is something more than just casually wrong with Windows.

I've come to some conclusions.

Microsoft should change their logo to an hour glass or that little spinning wheel.

Microsoft's corporate slogan shoud be; Contol, Alt. Delete.

If you have 200 gigs of memory, at least 150 gigs is for Microsaft error messages.

I call Microsoft either Microslop or Mediocresoft.

I'll try to follow along on the rest of the videos and maybe give Linux a try as long as it doesn't bully my Mastercam and Solidworks programs

 

[Mike]

You're tempting me Mike but I've got a couple of basic questions I'd like to ask before I even try getting into these video's and strip a brain gear.

Ha! Sometimes, stripping a brain gear is not such a bad thing. There are those times that we need to do that to start thinking outside the box.

1. What do you need in the way of chip speed and memory for these systems to run on. I have an older laptop with windows XP that I quit using because it's so slow. Would the laptop run any better with a linux operating system on it?

This is a tricky question. How long is a piece of string?

To do a realistic system that you intend to store files on and use as you would use Windows, 15 gig is about as small a drive as you will want. 5 gig for the root partition and 10 gig for /home. If you're looking to build a secure system to browse the Internet, 10 gigs would get you by.

A realistic, minimum chip would be Pentium 1, but some of the smaller Linux distros will run just fine on 386 processors.

Realistic memory minimums would be 1 gig of memory.

All that being said, I've seen Puppy Linux running on a i386 machine with 32 MB of RAM and no hard drive. No, it wouldn't allow you to create stunning graphics whilst watching a DVD and had no graphical desktop, but the system was up and running.

Here are just some quick recommendations from some various distro sites, assuming you will want a desktop environment -

Knoppix - i486 processor, 128 MB of RAM
Linux Mint - i486 processor, 512 MB of RAM
openSUSE - Pentium III, 512 MB of RAM
Debian - Pentium IV, 512 MB of RAM
Fedora - 400 MHz Pentium, 384 MB of RAM
Ubuntu - 1 GHz x86, 1 GB of RAM

Actually, older XP machines are great for Linux.

I've an old Dell XPS-410 I purchased in mid-2006. Core 2 Duo 1.86 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and a 250 gig hard drive. The machine has Windows XP on one partition and Linux Mint 10 Julia on another. XP is wounded on the machine, as it is really s-l-o-w. I boot into Mint and it runs like a brand-new machine. I have to admit, that machine gets used more than any other machine in the place. It's a wee 19" monitor and the lettering on some of the keys has worn off. The machine is a workhorse and while I would love to replace it, it works so well that I can see no reason to spend money on a replacement. The machine is currently using about 512 MB of RAM, with Thunderbird 3.1.9, Firefox 6.0 Nightly and a GNOME desktop running on it. I allocated 100 gig of disk to the Linux install, divided as follows -

/ - 20 gig, with 5.57 in use
/home - 78 gig, with 6.51 in use
swap - 2 gig

To give you an idea, this machine has Adobe AIR w/Tweetdeck, a couple text editing programs (think Notepad), a really nice screenshot tool called Shutter, The GIMP, a vector graphics program called Inkscape, a nice image editor called Mirage a PDF editor, a layout/publication program called Scribus, an OpenOffice drawing program, Chromium browser, Epiphany browser, Firefox 6.0 browser, Firefox 3.6.18 browser, Midori browser, Opera browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, Dropbox, an FTP program called FileZilla, an FTP program called KFTPGrabber, a BitTorrent script called Transmission, Pidgin IM, a dictionary, a FAX utility, OpenOffice Database (think Access), OpenOffice Presentation (think PowerPoint), OpenOffice Spreadsheet (think Excel), Open office Word Processor (think Word), a Web page development program, a PHP/HTML file editor, a sound recorder, two media players, a CD/DVD creator/burner, a shredder for deleted files, a drive backup tool, a network toolkit, along with all the necessary programs to set audio, video, monitor resolution, mouse and desktop settings. So, while the machine is not loaded down with every script known to man, it is more than an out-of-the-tin installation and has many more applications than a standard Windows 7 install.

My home directory is photos, word processor files, spreadsheet files, Web site files adn the like which have been collected since October 2007, when I did a real, dual boot installation of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. I don't keep everything that comes my way, but I don't delete anything I might find useful down the road. And that only amounts to 6.5 gig in 3.5 years time. That Linux install is using up 12.08 of disk space. Windows 7 requires 16 gig of space, jut to install!!

2. If I have one computer with windows 7 and get the second one running with one of these linux systems can I network them?

Absolutely! I've yet to see a Linux distro that would not allow simple, one-click intallations of Apache (which is a Web server) and Samba (which is a Windows file sharing script).

Ubuntu is available in several flavors, their desktop release and their server release being the most popular. You can take a plain, vanilla Ubuntu Desktop install, add the MediBuntu repositories and have a full-fledged media center running. Need a smaller footprint than Ubuntu offers? Use Xubuntu. If that isn't light enough, use Lubuntu. Are you wanting to use the system for educational purposes? Install Edubuntu. Got a Netbook? Run the Ubuntu Netbook remix. Setting up a server? Run the Ubuntu Server Edition. Want it on your phone? Install Ubuntu Mobile. Do you need to record and edit TV programs? Mythbuntu. Audio production more your thing? Ubuntu Studio. If your faith is important to you, install Ubnutu Christain Edition. Want a more Windows-friendly version? Ubuntu Ultimate Edition.

And that's just Ubuntu. I've mentioned several other Linux distros, but there's Arch, Sabayon, Slackware, FreeBSD, MEPIS, Gentoo, Crubnchbang, Red Hat, Peppermint, Pinguy, aptosid, Dreamlinux, Frugalware, OpenBSD, Moblin, Novell SLE, Yellow Dog and the list just keeps on going. If you like to use Mint, but you feel it could work better with some of openSUSE's technology, then grab what you want and add it to Mint. When you're finished, distribute it as Telman Linux. If I like how it works, but I feel the distro should have more audio editing capabilities, I can add them and distribute it as Mike's Linux. As a result, there are thousands os distributions available. Of those, I consider only a small handful to be safe for new users. Then again, some people like to learn by diving into the deep end. But that's all part of the beauty of Linux. You get to choose what you want to run, since that computer belongs to you.

Whether I end up using one of these systems or not...

If you have that older system, drag it out of mothballs. Download a distro that strikes your fancy, burn the .iso, and do an install. What do you care, if you get something wrong and break the install? You weren't using the system anyway. Try a distro and if you don't like it, then install something else. Having an older, "junk" system around is perfect for getting familiar with Linux. Don't get married to a distro until you've pummeled it to pieces. If it passes your test, then you can start saving data to it. If it fails, start with something different. I would love to have a spare system to play with. There are some distros I would love to try out, but I'm relucatant to take a system I've already configured to my liking and start all over with it. Debian, openSUSE and Fedora are calling my name and I want to play with each of them, but not until I get a system I don't need for other purposes.

 

[Corley]

It's worth repeating several times that it is extremely easy to download many of these distros, create a "live CD" or "live USB memory stick", then boot that CD or memory stick and you will be running the Linux of your choice without ever touching your hard drive. You don't have to do the install to get your feet wet. Many Linux dristros will run entirely out of memory and let you try out browsing, emailing, etc. so you get a taste of the look and feel of that version of Linux, without having to install it to your hard drive.

The process is so simple that really anyone can do it. Just pick a distro, practically any of the ones that Mike has mentioned, and download the .iso file. That file is ready to be written to a CD as is. Then boot the CD. (No CD burner? No problem, just use a free program called "unetbootin" to put the .iso file on a memory stick and boot the distro from that. It even has builtin support to download one of 25 or so different distros automatically for you)

As for speed and old PCs, I've found that many of these versions work with older hardware with absolutely no customization at all, and run much faster than windows ever did. Loading it into memory from a live CD will be slow, but once in memory, it will zip right along, and if you decide to put it on your hard drive it will be much faster yet. It's a great rainy day project...

Corley

 

[Mike]

It's worth repeating several times that it is extremely easy to download many of these distros, create a "live CD" or "live USB memory stick", then boot that CD or memory stick and you will be running the Linux of your choice without ever touching your hard drive. You don't have to do the install to get your feet wet. Many Linux dristros will run entirely out of memory and let you try out browsing, emailing, etc. so you get a taste of the look and feel of that version of Linux, without having to install it to your hard drive.

I always run a Live CD first, to make sure the distro is going to play well with my machine. I tried a Debian install on my old workhorse machine and Debian refused to "see" the machine's wired Ethernet connection. I wasn't going to go any further with it, because I was looking for a friendly distro, not one I was going to have to spoon-feed a lot of loving care and attention. The Debian users point out that is what allows Debian to remain lean and mean, by not including anything they don't have to include. I've used enough other distros that do include the basics, so why fight when I could just switch? Debian has some really nice features, but they are always about a step and a half behind other distros, as they subject everything to so many more tests. Again, that is the beauty of Linux. Freedom.

I've dozens of Live CDs floating around in here. I'll grab a BitTorrent download, which doesn't take very long at all, burn the image and give it a test to see if I like it or not.

Something else that should be stressed is that once you have downloaded a Linux .iso, you don't just copy it over to a CD. You need to burn it to CD as an image file. Win 7 can do that but earlier versions will need to use something like ImgBurn or InfraRecorder to burn images. InfraRecorder is free and works well for me.

 

[fordsbyjay]

So what do you use for a flash player? I keep getting an error saying I am missing plug-ins for this site but when I try to install them I get "could not find flash plug-in installer".

 

[fordsbyjay]

So what do you use for a flash player? I keep getting an error saying I am missing plug-ins for this site but when I try to install them I get "could not find flash plug-in installer".

Well I after numerous updates I now have flash working and can see your videos again.

 

[Mike]

What distro are you using, Jay?

 

[fordsbyjay]

Mike I am using 10.10 that I installed with WUBI last night. I was trying to run it from a usb stick but no matter what I did I could not get my computer to recognize the stick as a bootable device. I used a program from ubuntu.com (universal usb installer ??) and it all seemed simple but did not work. Even if I set the bios to boot to usb only it would not boot. Amongst all the messing around I did I ended up clicking the wubi shortcut, it started installing it so I just let it ride if you know what I mean. LOL.

 

[Mike]

Ubuntu is good stuff. I prefer using Mint, but this particular version of Mint is a downstream version of Ubuntu 10.10. You likely wouldn't have had the Flash issue with Mint, as things like that are part of their basic install.

Just be careful what you save to your WUBI install. Because of how it is installed, trying to upgrade WUBI will also mean overwriting anything else you've saved to it.

I am really unfamiliar with booting systems from a stick. I don't even own a stick. :blush: I keep thinking I will get one to experiment with, but I always seem to spend the money elsewhere. The machine next to this one has a 1 TB hard drive in it and there's an external 1TB drive sitting between the two machines, so a memory stick just never gets very high on my list of priorities.

 

[fordsbyjay]

Ubuntu is good stuff. I prefer using Mint, but this particular version of Mint is a downstream version of Ubuntu 10.10. You likely wouldn't have had the Flash issue with Mint, as things like that are part of their basic install.

Just be careful what you save to your WUBI install. Because of how it is installed, trying to upgrade WUBI will also mean overwriting anything else you've saved to it.

I am really unfamiliar with booting systems from a stick. I don't even own a stick. :blush: I keep thinking I will get one to experiment with, but I always seem to spend the money elsewhere. The machine next to this one has a 1 TB hard drive in it and there's an external 1TB drive sitting between the two machines, so a memory stick just never gets very high on my list of priorities.

It is actually the first time I have ever tried making a boot stick and obviously it didn't work. When it comes to stuff I don't know I just hack away at it till I run out of patience or succeed. The down side is sometimes stuff installs not how you initially intended as is the case this time. Oh well we will see how it work and go from there.