windows 8.1 vs ubuntu 14.04

[whs]

I like the stick version too. I use Mint Mate on a 16GB and a 128GB stick. The big stick has the advantage that I can use the 115GB data partition to rescue data from dead systems directly to the stick. This is how I created it.

 

[CountMike]

I like the stick version too. I use Mint Mate on a 16GB and a 128GB stick. The big stick has the advantage that I can use the 115GB data partition to rescue data from dead systems directly to the stick. This is how I created it.

Yes, that's what I was going by, just didn't make any partitions, As it's my service disk , on 16GB I have other stuff too, mostly portable programs for Windows.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there.

have mine on an old laptop 320GB HDD -- as it's 7200 rpm it performs really well -- connected to computer via SATA==>USB cable. Even the VM works fine and still loads of space for other stuff. If you are switching a laptop HDD for an SSD don't throw it away - these old laptop drives make excellent Backup storage or use for portable Linux systems etc.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[pparks1]

It's the beauty of choice with Linux, I don't particularly like KDE...never really have. I tend to stick to Gnome when I have to use a desktop. But KDE is obviously available to others who prefer it.

I downloaded CentOS 7 this week while on vacation. There are a lot of changes to get used to with this new release. Moving to smartd from SysV for starting up services. XFS for file system versus EXT4. Grub2 for the boot loader. Has Open-vm-tool built in, so you don't have to load vmware tools.

 

[lehnerus2000]

I like the stick version too. I use Mint Mate on a 16GB and a 128GB stick. The big stick has the advantage that I can use the 115GB data partition to rescue data from dead systems directly to the stick. This is how I created it.

Nice.
You may remember me asking about high performance USB sticks previously.

I discovered that my local shop has these USB 3.0 sticks:

• SanDisk Ultra (claimed transfer speed of up to~ 80MB/s)
• SanDisk Extreme (claimed transfer speed of up to~ 245MB/s)

It's the beauty of choice with Linux, I don't particularly like KDE...never really have. I tend to stick to Gnome when I have to use a desktop. But KDE is obviously available to others who prefer it.

I'm a GNOME 2 guy myself, which is why I use MATE.

I downloaded CentOS 7 this week while on vacation. There are a lot of changes to get used to with this new release. Moving to smartd from SysV for starting up services. XFS for file system versus EXT4. Grub2 for the boot loader. Has Open-vm-tool built in, so you don't have to load vmware tools.

I thought CentOS 6 was nice (I haven't tried CentOS 7).

I haven't tried using Open-VM-Tools yet either.

Have you noticed any issues when compared to VMware Tools?

 

[lordyosch]

I've done the opposite!

Hi,

My house has been Ubuntu/Linux ONLY for about 8 years. Last week I installed Win 8.1 -There is no Ubuntu on this PC any more (not dual boot or virtualised!).

I think Linux is great, open source -fantastic. I am a pretty competent Linux user so why have I switched?

In Ubuntu it either works 'out of the box' or its a lot of hassle to make it work. eg - printers. I have an HP because its pretty much the only maker who supports Linux and therefore their printers work easily.

My phones, tablets and cameras work with Ubuntu but it took some doing. My wife's nexus 7 won't work with it.
Serviio (media server) worked with it on the last version but I couldn't get it to work on 14.04.
Getting surround sound to work was a lot of hassle.
Libre office /Open office are OK but they're not FULLY MS office compatible (which I use at work)

Eventually I decided I wanted a PC that 'worked'

Because I work in a school I got 8.1 pro for £50 -there is no way I'd have switched for £160!!

I installed Win 8 -my last windows PC was XP so it was quite a change. I found my way through it quite easily with only one hassle -no surround sound!
(I really thought I'd left that behind!)
The solution was a piece of cake, once I'd found it. Double click the jacks on the realtek manager. -No editing config files etc.

All the program (types, not exact apps) work fine and several that didn't (virgin media anywhere, Netflix etc) now work and before they didn't.


I've given windows plenty of stick before but now I'm happily back in the fold!


Jay

 

[whs]

You may remember me asking about high performance USB sticks previously.

I discovered that my local shop has these USB 3.0 sticks.
•SanDisk Ultra (claimed transfer speed of up to~ 80MB/s)
•SanDisk Extreme (claimed transfer speed of up to~ 245MB/s)

This is my Sandisk 64GB stick. Important is the access time. That is in SSD range.

 

[pparks1]

I thought CentOS 6 was nice (I haven't tried CentOS 7).

I haven't tried using Open-VM-Tools yet either.

Have you noticed any issues when compared to VMware Tools?

Haven't played with it (CentOS 7) enough to make a general statement about how I like it. For most tech enthusiasts, CentOS won't include enough of the latest bells and whistles. It's meant to be a stable enterprise release that's not on the bleeding edge. CentOS is what I have used on servers for the longest time.

Haven't noticed anything with the Open-vm-tools yet. I was just surprised when I went to install the VMWare Tools and it was already installed. My testing stuff seems to be working just fine.

I've been on vacation this past week. I'll be putting up a CentOS 7 desktop machine at work and will be screwing around with it quite a bit over the next few weeks. Should know more about it soon!.

 

[jimbo45]

It's the beauty of choice with Linux, I don't particularly like KDE...never really have. I tend to stick to Gnome when I have to use a desktop. But KDE is obviously available to others who prefer it.

I downloaded CentOS 7 this week while on vacation. There are a lot of changes to get used to with this new release. Moving to smartd from SysV for starting up services. XFS for file system versus EXT4. Grub2 for the boot loader. Has Open-vm-tool built in, so you don't have to load vmware tools.

Hi there.

I basically recommended KDE for users trying out Linux for the first time as IMO it's "reasonably Windows like" - and with a classic start menu so people coming from Windows might not find it too horrible or different.

I Do like CENTOS but for me I tend to use OPENSUSE as it's well supported by a decent commercial base (SUSE/NOVELL), and it's very stable which for a working desktop you really need. For home use I do like things like Linux Mint with small GUI's and I have a server where I don't bother with a GUI at all.

I still recommend though on these portable systems to use a proper small HDD rather than a Stick -- small laptop 2.5 inch HDD's or even better an older SSD you might have replaced with a larger capacity model. Simply connect to your machine via USB2/USB3==>Sata connector or directly to sata connector if you have a connector on laptop or desktop machine. The 2.5 inch HDD's / SSD's aren't much bigger than a USB stick, not so easily lost, work far faster and you can add a second data partition for persistant ("Saveable") data if you want.

The HDD / SDD version is better too if you want to run VM's from your PORTABLE system. You won't get a W7 and a W8.1 VM together on a 64GB stick !!!!. A 320 GB laptop HDD works just fine and for a single VM a 120 GB SSD is brilliant solution too.

On my OPENSUSE I'm also using the OPEN VM tools - I'm also going to experiment with the BTRFS file system - EXT4 good though it is is about to enter "retirement". XFS seems to be not so widely used in Home type distros -- don't know whether that's good or bad. !!

My biggest bugbear with some of the current distros is that if you want to create PORTABLE systems and you want an EFI version you don't get any choice as to where to install the boot loader -- on Non UEFI versions you can specify where to install the boot loader. That's often the problem with these "Easy installs" - they remove any customisation you need or want to do - even to selecting what packages to install. (That's why I tend to install from the LIVE CD rather than download the "Full works").

Cheers
jimbo

 

[pparks1]

Hi there.

I basically recommended KDE for users trying out Linux for the first time as IMO it's "reasonably Windows like" - and with a classic start menu so people coming from Windows might not find it too horrible or different.

Hopefully you didn't take my comments wrong, I'm not against KDE in any way. It's just never been my cup of tea. For many I can see it being a great choice. And that's a thing I like about Linux, you almost always have a choice.

I Do like CENTOS but for me I tend to use OPENSUSE as it's well supported by a decent commercial base (SUSE/NOVELL), and it's very stable which for a working desktop you really need. For home use I do like things like Linux Mint with small GUI's and I have a server where I don't bother with a GUI at all.

OPENSUSE is solid. Played with it for a bit. I started on Linux with Caldera Open Linux and went to Red Hat Linux almost straight away. Therefore, most of my time has been spend in a Red Hat style distro, so I'm used to their tools and methodologies, so I stick with it. And now that I have been doing things for years, I have a lot of documentation written around RedHat/RHEL/CentOS...so I stick with it for consistency. I've used Fedora here and there, but it's way to fast and fragile for my tastes...so i don't stay with it for a desktop. I used to be mostly Ubuntu until they went Unity and then I went to Linux Mint. But as stated a few times, Linux desktops for me are rare, so I don't have extensive time with Mint at all.

I still recommend though on these portable systems to use a proper small HDD rather than a Stick -- small laptop 2.5 inch HDD's or even better an older SSD you might have replaced with a larger capacity model. Simply connect to your machine via USB2/USB3==>Sata connector or directly to sata connector if you have a connector on laptop or desktop machine. The 2.5 inch HDD's / SSD's aren't much bigger than a USB stick, not so easily lost, work far faster and you can add a second data partition for persistant ("Saveable") data if you want.

I don't use the portable systems hardly at all. Only for data recovery functionality. I mostly run Linux as a VM.

On my OPENSUSE I'm also using the OPEN VM tools - I'm also going to experiment with the BTRFS file system - EXT4 good though it is is about to enter "retirement". XFS seems to be not so widely used in Home type distros -- don't know whether that's good or bad. !!

XFS is stable as a rock. RHEL/CentOS went with it because it supports 500TB volumes. < Not going to be a concern of mine to be honest.

 

[Dubbledoo]

An annoyance to me when using Ubuntu and Mint, was updating the OS rarely seemed to work, was clunky and slow. Also, if I remember correctly, quite often updating involved downloading and installing a whole new version. Is this still the case?

Another question; Is running a VM a danger to the host Windows OS? I've never done it and have yet to research how to do it, but I really want to soon so I can play with some other Linux distros.

 

[jimbo45]

An annoyance to me when using Ubuntu and Mint, was updating the OS rarely seemed to work, was clunky and slow. Also, if I remember correctly, quite often updating involved downloading and installing a whole new version. Is this still the case?

Another question; Is running a VM a danger to the host Windows OS? I've never done it and have yet to research how to do it, but I really want to soon so I can play with some other Linux distros.

Hi there

Totally OK to run a VM -- it's only DATA as far as the HOST is concerned. I'd use VMware player (free) myself but some people use VBOX. My past experience shows that VMWARE seems to be more stable and just works whereas VBOX sometimes needs a few bits of work to get it to operate decently.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Dubbledoo]

Thanks Jimbo.

I take it that this is what you use? https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/6_0

I suppose you install VMware and then install Linux whilst running the VM?

Paul.