Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: headdie on November 05, 2013, 12:30:27 pm

Title: Operating Systems
Post by: headdie on November 05, 2013, 12:30:27 pm
Ok so I am now settled with my Frankenstein system.  As a result of the rebuilds and salvaging I now have 3 hard drives which are perhaps a third to half full in overall capacity.

This gives me an opportunity to explore other operating systems on a dual boot, so any suggestions on what to try?

things to take into account:-
 
1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

2) my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard

3) needs to play nice with Windows XP as a dual boot

4) Command line dosnt phase me but a readily available command list is a must
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Grizzly on November 05, 2013, 12:33:42 pm
Quote
my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard
Install Windows 98 and play the old mechwarriors.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Ghostavo on November 05, 2013, 01:01:48 pm
1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

Ubuntu.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: TwentyPercentCooler on November 05, 2013, 02:28:03 pm
1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

Ubuntu.

I think I'd go with Mint. It's very WinXP-like.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Nuke on November 05, 2013, 05:38:17 pm
Quote
my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard
Install Windows 98 and play the old mechwarriors.

i had mechwarrior 2 working on win7 at one point, with acceleration, joysticks, and even trackir. i cant for the life of me remember how i pulled it off. some 3rd party patch and i had to hack something to make my ch gear work.  ppjoy and tir2joy for trackir.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Bobboau on November 06, 2013, 01:41:53 am
I used to be a Ubuntu fan, recommending it to newcomers without a second thought, but now I would recommend Mint, this one (http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=132) though if you can hold out until the end of the month they are going to be releasing their new version
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: karajorma on November 06, 2013, 04:36:30 am
One of the things no one warns you about Ubuntu, you'll need to search the internet to find out how to get the damn thing to not automatically assign itself as the default OS on bootup once you've installed it. And then you'll have to go through the unnecessarily complex task of setting it back to Windows (assuming that's what you want). It's a lot of trouble for something you should be able to do Grub in the first place!

No idea if the other distros have the same annoyance.

Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: ssmit132 on November 06, 2013, 05:24:18 am
I know that Linux Mint does that too (or at the very least 13 Cinnamon does that). In that case I wanted it to be the default anyway, but if I wanted to change it I would just edit the grub config.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Kopachris on November 06, 2013, 06:04:22 am
One of the things no one warns you about Ubuntu, you'll need to search the internet to find out how to get the damn thing to not automatically assign itself as the default OS on bootup once you've installed it. And then you'll have to go through the unnecessarily complex task of setting it back to Windows (assuming that's what you want). It's a lot of trouble for something you should be able to do Grub in the first place!

No idea if the other distros have the same annoyance.

Yes, most (if not all) other distros have the same annoyance.  IIRC, a lot of them don't even bother installing themselves in addition to Windows by default, forcing you to manually partition if you don't want to wipe Windows out.  And I wasn't aware that changing one line in /etc/default/grub (two lines if you want to change whether it shows the GRUB menu by default) and then running "sudo update-grub" was an especially complex task.  I don't see any problem with it setting itself as the default OS (I would expect that of every OS that installs its own bootloader), but I do agree that the information on how to change it could be more accessible (it wouldn't be difficult for the developers to provide an option in the installer, either).
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: karajorma on November 06, 2013, 09:06:15 am
And I wasn't aware that changing one line in /etc/default/grub (two lines if you want to change whether it shows the GRUB menu by default) and then running "sudo update-grub" was an especially complex task.

I said unnecessarily complex. And it it. Any sensible operating system would give you the option to permanently change the boot order in the boot loader itself. Why the **** should I have to load the operating system I don't particularly want to use in order to make it not load?


Quote
I don't see any problem with it setting itself as the default OS (I would expect that of every OS that installs its own bootloader).

Quite frankly, I do. If I'm installing a program on Windows, I get all kind of annoyed when it decides "Hey, you're installing a media player so I'm going to grab all the media associations for myself." I doubt I'm the only one. But when an OS does that, well it's okay.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Kopachris on November 06, 2013, 09:54:33 am
And I wasn't aware that changing one line in /etc/default/grub (two lines if you want to change whether it shows the GRUB menu by default) and then running "sudo update-grub" was an especially complex task.

I said unnecessarily complex. And it it. Any sensible operating system would give you the option to permanently change the boot order in the boot loader itself. Why the **** should I have to load the operating system I don't particularly want to use in order to make it not load?


Quote
I don't see any problem with it setting itself as the default OS (I would expect that of every OS that installs its own bootloader).

Quite frankly, I do. If I'm installing a program on Windows, I get all kind of annoyed when it decides "Hey, you're installing a media player so I'm going to grab all the media associations for myself." I doubt I'm the only one. But when an OS does that, well it's okay.

Well, you're dealing with problems common to pretty much every operating system, then.  Doesn't matter if it's Mac, Windows, or Linux, when you install it, it will install a new bootloader with itself as the default operating system (except when installing Windows using BootCamp from a Mac host, or installing Ubuntu using WUBI (now officially deprecated) from a Windows host).  Also, I'm not aware of any bootloader that will let you set the default operating system from the bootloader itself.  GRUB probably comes closest, since you can set it up to boot into whatever was last booted.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Fury on November 06, 2013, 10:29:32 am
Linux prides itself as promoting choice. As such it could be expected they would also let user to choose what his or her default operating system should be. Letting user to pick that when GRUB is being set up wouldn't be all that hard and I'm actually surprised if that isn't the case.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on November 06, 2013, 01:59:37 pm
Getting back to the topic...

1) I am a life long Microsoft OS user with only momentary experience of other operating systems so differences in interface need to be fairly easy to adjust to.

2) my system is old, running a hyperthreaded single core P4, 1.5gb memory, GF 6600 GT and a Creative Audigy soundcard
Linux Mint would be a good choice, as mentioned before; considering your system specs, I'd recommend the MATE or Xfce flavours. Alternatively (or while waiting for the new Mints), you can try out Lubuntu and/or Xubuntu for a (slightly) different take on the desktop environment.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: headdie on November 06, 2013, 02:47:37 pm
Lubuntu and Xubuntu are certainly interesting as builds designed to be lightweight on system load, So i might look into them first then move onto Mint a little down the line if i feel like it.

while i look into the builds above has anyone got any experience with the other free/opensource OSs?
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Nuke on November 06, 2013, 07:20:58 pm
ive already decided that debian will be the distro i use somewhere between the end of win7 support and the release of a reactos beta.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 07, 2013, 03:39:50 am
Strongly recommend you use Mint rather than an Ubuntu variant. Canonical are trying to turn Ubuntu into an Apple-style walled garden, you don't want to end up inside that.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: jr2 on November 08, 2013, 01:34:27 pm
One of the things no one warns you about Ubuntu, you'll need to search the internet to find out how to get the damn thing to not automatically assign itself as the default OS on bootup once you've installed it. And then you'll have to go through the unnecessarily complex task of setting it back to Windows (assuming that's what you want). It's a lot of trouble for something you should be able to do Grub in the first place!

No idea if the other distros have the same annoyance.



Find app called Startup in the Synaptic package manager.

Install

Open

Configure

Profit!!

EDIT:

Strongly recommend you use Mint rather than an Ubuntu variant. Canonical are trying to turn Ubuntu into an Apple-style walled garden, you don't want to end up inside that.

:wakka:

... you do realize why that statement is hilarious, right?  I mean, I know what you're trying to say, but ...

Spoiler:
First, there was the original Linux.  Then, there was a variant called Debian.  Of which there came to be a variant called Ubuntu.  Of which there came to be a variant called... .... ........ Mint!

EDIT2: I meant to also throw in for Mint, :yes:

EDIT3: If you want to be able to change your boot preference / rescue Linux from within WindowsTM, install the free (for home use) EasyBCD (http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/) by NeoSmart.  This will allow you to pretty much do what you want with your startup config - you can insert an option to boot linux from the Windows startup menu, edit the GRUB startup menu, and it's all pretty much automagical.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 08, 2013, 02:27:43 pm
I know Mint is an Ubuntu fork. It's not affiliated with Canonical in any way, though, and it was forked long before Ubuntu started going down the drain; my point stands.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Luis Dias on November 08, 2013, 02:29:29 pm
I'm actually starting to hate ubuntu. I have middle fingered Microsoft for decades, but damn their OS is really stable nowadays. Can't say the same for Ubuntu.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: pecenipicek on November 08, 2013, 02:59:42 pm
I'm actually starting to hate ubuntu. I have middle fingered Microsoft for decades, but damn their OS is really stable nowadays. Can't say the same for Ubuntu.
i've been using kubuntu at work for the past 3 months and had... "mild" annoyances with getting some up to date / out of repo packages (svn post 1.6, google chrome and yes i know there's chromium, but i need to have chrome too)
but other than that, its been rock solid.

at home, funtoo + KDE (screw gnome3 and derivatives), cause i love to screw with my system often. and i found that ubuntu and company are very very not fond of the way i can bend them sideways sometimes, going so far to get unrepairable the moment i stray from their guidelines.

i mean you'd think that setting ****ing locales would be easy, but noooo. had to trawl their stackoverflow clone for the solution to that particular idiocy...
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 08, 2013, 05:23:35 pm
I'm actually starting to hate ubuntu. I have middle fingered Microsoft for decades, but damn their OS is really stable nowadays. Can't say the same for Ubuntu.

i feel like i'm repeating myself an awful lot in linux threads these days, but if you're on standard ubuntu you should definitely gtfo at the next opportunity
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: übermetroid on November 08, 2013, 08:34:44 pm
Can you dual boot Win 8 and Win XP?
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Ghostavo on November 09, 2013, 06:07:51 am
Yes
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: S-99 on November 09, 2013, 06:33:41 am
Maybe i'm a little different here. But, i've used for since the day it came out. I like linux mint a lot, and i can take debian from command line bare bones and turn it into a full desktop, and even my own distribution (not suggesting nuke can't do this). I highly recommend debian even myself. APT and the debian repository are simply bad ass. It really helps with dependency resolution, and needing to grab stuff that's not in the debian repositories far and few between (debian's repositories are the biggest).

I said earlier that i like linux mint. Well, i don't like using an ubuntu base because of the stability problems i've had with them (i don't mess with bleeding edge, or even the latest stuff). I remain current in software though. I recommend linux mint debian.

Now i'll probably be told that i don't really like to deal with a "true" linux system. But, i can care less about that. I run linux mint debian for several reasons. But, the main reason is that it does rolling release for linux in an easy way, that is also reliable. They do rolling release in the form of service packs like what you'd find for windows. That makes it easy, the other part that makes it easy is the fact that the packages are tested for reliability before they enter your system with a classification of number 1-3 what may be dangerous for you to install. I've run debian sid before and said **** it. I didn't care going package by package determining if something was going to break my system or not. And well, some system updates have more packages to go through to determine reliability. It gets down to i like a system that easy to use that isn't ubuntu.

I've got better things to be up to, like actually using my computer and not worrying if it's going to be stable the next day. This is why i recommend linux mint debian. Install once, and update into perpetuity. I don't recommend cinnamon, i do recommend mate though (gnome 2 fork). Eats less memory, what frees up more memory is when you uninstall mono (uninstalling it noticeably gave was like 60mb less ram usage from the os). At the end of the day, i prefer to use a computer, than a computer using me. Linux mint debian has matured quite well.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: Kopachris on November 09, 2013, 06:49:06 am
Personally, I prefer Arch.  I just like messing around with stuff, learning about how it all works together.  I do it with Mac and Windows, too, but it's easiest on Linux.  I might end up trying Gentoo someday.

I do use Windows as my primary OS right now, though I plan on triple-booting Mavericks, Win 8.1, and Arch on my new pc.
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: S-99 on November 09, 2013, 07:25:05 am
I hear you. I like messing around with all of it too. However, i was getting down to, at the end of everyday, me not wanting to mess with stuff and just sit down and use a computer.

However, arch is a great base. I messed around with it a few years ago. And found that the KISS, really was not about keeping it simple. Well, it keeps it simple for some people, and i know who, however it is not me. But, i think they should have called it "from the ground up" instead. I'm not a hater of arch whatsoever, the repository, package manager, and even the maintaining of the packages is fantastic with arch. Because it's such a pain in the ass to set up (compared to debian...i just didn't prefer setting arch up manually) this is why i have high hopes for arch distributions. The base of their os is solid and great, i know they will spin off many great distributions.

However, even at the end of the day. Even for people who are used to messing around with stuff. I like to put stuff into a highlight. That being if i can turn on the computer and expect no problems and just type up a report, play a game, whothe****cares. That's what i found i really want. I can **** with linux any day no problem. But, for my own systems, i have enough life going on to keep me busy, that the last thing to keep me busy that i desire is my computer.

In retrospect, arch is a great base. I highly anticipate more distributions using it as a base and being successful at it. It will bring the arch base more maturity in the area of at least a damn package manager frontend for the damn thing (which is what i find really lacking in arch aside from more distributions using it as a base).
Title: Re: Operating Systems
Post by: jr2 on November 09, 2013, 02:19:36 pm
Can you dual boot Win 8 and Win XP?

That is one thing that the aforementioned EasyBCD makes a lot easier, as, if you install XP after Vista/7/8/8.1, it will overwrite the boot sector, making the other OSes unbootable without repair (as well as Linux, if you have that installed).  Install EasyBCD on the running XP OS, and search through the OSes and add them to the boot menu, after you use EasyBCD to re-install the Windows 6.x bootloader instead of the 5.x one that XP installed (Windows 2000 is Windows is version number 5.0, XP is 5.1, XP 64-bit is 5.2, Vista 6.0, 7 6.1, 8 is 6.2, 8.1 is 6.3   source (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724832(v=vs.85).aspx) )