Moving to Linux

[ppppenguin]

I disabled all the legacy stuff in the BIOS. As with all attempted boots I see a few error message run past too fast for me to read. At least this time I didn't get the GRUB screen. Still get the unhelpful Installation Type screen where I can't see the HDD.

In the box at the bottom where it says "Device for boot loader installation" it says /dev/sda. etc. As you can see in my first photo in a previous post. As I said before, Linux live can see my HDD. I can see the folder structure of a Windows installation. I can open files with LibreOffice etc.

Still getting nowhere.

[Mike Watterson]

No, you can't disable legacy, it has to be 2nd option or else HDD/SDD can't be changed except by MS Windows installer!

So just check ALL the bios option screens and make sure no secure boot option, legacy enabled but EFI is ALSO enabled and 1st choice.

[Raditechman]

After trying Linux for about a year at the end of XP,  I have now got Windows 10 on all my PC's.  
Hope you are successful but I found that a lot of programs that I liked/use did not have Linux versions, and the Linux equivalents were not as good.
Linux is fine with Libre Office,  Audacity,  web browsing etc,  but I never had much luck with video editing. Sibelius music software also only runs on Windows.
Many ham radio software programs like Ham Radio De Luxe run with no trouble on Windows but not so easily with Linux.
If you find Linux OK I may give it another try, so interesting to watch your progress.

John

[ppppenguin]

If you must use software that won't run under your chosen OS then the usual answer is a virtual machine. I use XP in Virtualbox to run older Xilinx software. Entirely successful. In fact to my surprise I found that a version of the Xilinx software that would run under W7 was actually faster in an XP VM. I tried this in preparation for a switch to Linux.

I've never used Sibelius but I can't imagine it's too demanding of PC speed etc. Hence it ought to be fine in a VM. Video editing is another matter. That's very demanding so I suspect a native Linux package would be better. Here's a comparison article: https://itsfoss.com/best-video-editing-software-linux/

Ham Radio deluxe is claimed to work in a VM: http://g8yph.blogspot.com/2017/03/migrat...o-new.html

One point about VMs is that they don't need to be kept up to date. It's safe to use XP etc provided you don't use it for browsing the net or other potenitally unsafe purposes.

[Mike Watterson]

Also you can snapshot a VM if used for only one application, thus in a few seconds from clicking on the host OS icon you can be in the application without having to launch it in the guest OS. My wife uses this for a version of Scrabble on Linux that won't run on Win7 or Win10, 32 bit or 64 bit.

MS themselves promotes Win7 and XP VMs on Win10 as the preferred way to run older software.

[Raditechman]

I have used virtual machine running Windows  with Linux. I have also tried most of the Linux video editors.
In the end I found it much easy to use Window and not have all the extra hassle to get prorams to run.
I have had no problems with Windows 10 or it updates.

John

[ppppenguin]

I've tried all sorts of things and failed to isntal Linux on to my spare SSD. This includes using gparted to delete all partitions from the SSD and format with ext4. The installer still can't see the SSD.

I thought I'd try a 2TB "spinning rust" HDD that I had spare. This seems to have several paritions on it but the installer can see it OK. Although the installer can see the disk I used gparted to delete the existing partitions and create a new ext4 partition. The installer is currently doing its job happily.

I'd much prefer to use the SSD - I'd like the speed. So what's wrong with it. I think it may have been used as part of a hardware Raid 1 array in the past. I've had problems with ex Raid 1 disks before. Something seems to be written to them (in the MBR?) that identifies them as members of a Raid array and is difficult to remove. fsck is showing something a bit odd on the SSD to do with the MBR. I think. I'm really rather out of my depth.

Searching online it seems others have been here before. And it looks a bit complicated to reset the SSD back to non-Raid.
https://serverfault.com/questions/488346...rom-drives
https://www.systutorials.com/136711/how-...-on-linux/

[Mike Watterson]

If it was used in any other than basic way on Windows then you may need to use Windows Disk Manager to delete the partitions*. You may need a utility to add a compatible EFI partition for the computer in some cases.

* Especially applies to LVM and RAID. Fixing ex RAID drives may need version of windows and/or the HW RAID controller if one was used.

However non-enterprise SSDs are less reliable than WD 1G Black or NAS HDDs. Smart utilities give warning of developing problems with HDD, there is little to no advance warning of SSD failure. Also in practice the biggest speed gain with SSD is on multiuser/multiprocess applications like a file server for 20+ people or a web server, not single user usage.

[ppppenguin]

The instal problem was the remains of some Raid stuff on the SSD. The command "dmraid -r -E /dev/sda" dealt with it.
https://www.systutorials.com/136711/how-...-on-linux/

[ppppenguin]

Thunderbird (the email program) suffered from an obscure problem that didn't respond to the usual online searches. I finally started it from the command line and could see error messages. Searching on them provided the answer. A file in my Thunderbird profile "pkcs11.txt" has a full path using backslashes. Linux has no idea how to deal with "D:\\THUNDE~1\\jb1" and casued problems. This file is concerned with login passwords so that side of Thunderbird was completely borked until I deleted the file. It then gets re-created automatically (and correctly).

Installing Virtualbox looks a bit like hard work. In Windows you simply download the executable installer and run it. In Linux it's a series of wget and other commands. There are Virtualbox bits in the repository but not the whole package as far as I can see. https://computingforgeeks.com/install-vi...inux-mint/

I want to be certain that everything I need to do will work under linux before I consider putting on my main PC. Quite a long way to go yet.