TazManiac wrote:Yep. To follow along on what Dave-bob just said; you should consider downloading an ISO that can be used to either burn to CD (really, these days onto a blank DVD due to size) and/or a 4 or 8G USB Flash Drive so as to end up with what is known as a LiveCD.
By booting from the 'LiveCD' (which, again, might as well be a flash drive) you can demo the OS of your choice without making any changes to your existing hard drive's contents. As in, when you boot from the LiveCD, instead of choosing 'Install' you choose 'Demo'. (I paraphrase for effect.)
Yep, that's the best way to dip your toe in, without committing. But most likely, if you do it well, and long enough to be a trial that's worth it, you'll find after a while that you most likely will want to jump in fully.
TazManiac wrote:The Front End of most, but not all, Distros acts and feels like Win XP/7/10, etc w/ a conventional Menuing layout and mouse driven action. Only in rare occasions is the regular user inclined to resort to using Command Line action, (in a Terminal, emulating the old Mainframe terminals, but most folks if old enough think of it as a 'Dos Window'...).
In fact, many distros make it a point of making the interface user-friendly, in such a way as to not need the Terminal except in eiither "extreme" cases, or for very pointed and specific tasks. And even if it sometimes can look like Win XP or Win 7, it is usually much more configurable. For instance, you are not stuck with only one "taskbar" at the bottom. You can add "control panels" (the taskbar equivalent in Linux) at the top, on the sides, and so on. Have them retract when not hovered over, or not. Roll up windows into their title bar, to keep them on the screen while not taking much space, instead of minimizing them and having to look for them on the taskbar. Have your system configured to highlight whichever window your mouse hovers over, without having to click on the window to make it the current one. There are many, many more ways to configure things. Much more than in Windows, no matter which version. And I'm sure I'm not even using half of it.
TazManiac wrote:Those hardy souls who either have an old PC to tool around with (esp now that, after 13+ years Microsoft has stopped putting out patches for Win XP*, or want a bit of a snappy performance bump to that mid to ancient PC, and /or want to try something New, Are fed up with the 900 lbs Gorilla that is Microsoft, realize you don't really have to be a Rocket Scientist to run something thats not Mainstream.
My old laptop, which I bought used from a friend, ran Win XP 32 bit. And ran it very slowly. Now, it's still somewhat slow, but still faster than before, now that it runs Linux Mint, Debian edition. The Cinnamon interface looks better than XP ever did, and ahving Linux on the laptop did boost the speed. And while I did read up on Linux for a while, before making the jump, I am still not fully versed into it, but can manage to do most things just fine.
TazManiac wrote:* Win XP is Dead, But not really, because a lot of Point-of-Sale units use a form of embedded WinXP, so 'patches continue')
So, XP is dead, long live XP?
TazManiac wrote:I think we have a cobwebby thread about Linux/Ubuntu around here somewhere, but if so or not I can resurrect it or start a new one.
Well,
this thread was specifically about Ubuntu Studio 16.04. There was also a
thread about Win 10, how great it is, how it sucked, how it spied on you, and what alternatives, such as Linux, one might want to use...
But a general thread about Linux, without being concentrated on a specific distro, does not exist. I am "planning" on writing a thread (as in a succession of multiple small posts) describing my experience in switching to Linux, the hurdles I had to overcome, and the successes I had, but it is far from ready to post...
TazManiac wrote:My encouragement to new users and/or a certain Bus Driver would be to think about the layout being something like this:
I wonder what bus driver he means...
TazManiac wrote:- Dual Boot (means you have an existing [Microsoft] OS like XP or 7 or Win 10 and you install the Linux OS alongside of it. Menu on start up will default to one of your choosing but you can select the other at any time. Also that the new and old OS's live on separate parts of the hard drive (partitions).
Not only do I dual boot, but my two OSes live on actual separate drives.
TazManiac wrote:- Separate Linux OS and 'HOME' partitions as well. (Means the OS lives in it's own space, can be blown up and 'Nuked from Orbit' should you so choose, but you retain the 'My Documents' aspect of your user account.)
Been there, done that. On both disks. And since Windows cannot read any Linux file/disk partition format, while LInux reads NTFS just fine, I backup my Linux documents onto my Windows Documents partition every time I have to boot into Windows, so it serves as a first stage backup as well.
TazManiac wrote:I haven't used, long term and in real life, other 'Distros'* than Ubuntu and specifically Ubuntu Studio (with it's xfce front-end) but Google is your friend, at least in terms of finding you lots of web sites that stack the different versions up against one another.
*(shorthand for Distributions, differing variants that provide a great deal of choice in the look and feel of the user experience as well as focus on different aspects and OS provides like Low Hardware Overhead or Lots of Eye Candy or Audio/Video Production, etc, etc.)
I used two tools for helping me decide, the first time around, which distro to put on my laptop, besides the various blog posts comparing various distros:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments ... stro_made/ (includes a very nicely made flowchart) and
Distrowatch.com, a site that reviews distros and helps make head or tails of it all.
TazManiac wrote:Specific to Lake Wrangler's query: if you choose to Update via an 'automated' process provided from within the 14.04 you have now you will be almost guaranteed to end up with ver 17.10 overwriting the 14.x you have now. I do not recommend this.
Actually, since 14.04 is an LTS, whenever I get a message informing me that I should update, it recommends updating to 16.04, the next LTS. The problem I fear now, is that 18.04 is going to be an LTS, so it might want to upgrade to that, instead of 16.04 like it's been wanting me to do. So I need to get my butt in gear, and upgrade while it's still suggesting I upgrade to 16.04...
TazManiac wrote:Rather, I would have us start a new thread where not only can we focus on your specific setup and conditions but others may gain from the experience. Or we could take the nuts and bolts stuff offline. Either way. In the end you will have a better time if you install something like the very stable 16.04 to a individual partition, either by deleting the existing 14.04 partition during the process OR (using the LiveCD) move your Single OS & Data (Home directories) over to make room for a new 16.04 partition to be created. The 14.04 can be removed post install as it will be in place but dormant at that stage.
Interesting concept, installing onto a new partition, and removing the old one afterwards. If it stops suggesting 16.04 as an upgrade, I might just do that.
TazManiac wrote:I know I tend to write in dense and long winded sentences and paragraphs, but it's very doable- an everyday existence w/ 'Other Than Microsoft' as your Operating System.
Lets us endeavor to persevere...
I don't mind long-windedness. I'm often guilty of it myself... And living outside of Microsoft's shadow actually feels pretty good. And Linux comes with so many software options, giving me many tools which I never could have purchased for Windows. The only times I switch to Windows are when I use Skype for a weekly bible study video conference (Skype is not quite as developped, under Linux, although that is changing, and may even already be OK to use, were I to upgrade my Linux Distro), if a tool does not work well in Linux (for instance, I bought a USB microphone, which is visible in Linux, but which, for some reason, Audacity will not recognize. But when I boot into Windows, Audacity recognizes and lets me use the USB mic. Also, it happens some times that VLC will give me trouble with a DVD - such as not playing the sound right - but will play just find in Windows.), or when I work on an MS Access database for a friend. MS Office does not play very well with Linux, and the VB for Applications, which I use behind the various forms in the database, is not compatible with Libre Office's Base program (their version of a Database manager.) So I have to be in Windows to do it. But apart from those three cases, I am always in Linux. It does everything I need: document writing, browsing the web, edit videos, play various media, manipulate images, access my emails, etc. And once I purchase an actual audio interface, instead of just a USB mic, all my recording needs should be met directly under Linux.