Linux for dummies

[Feanor]

You can change the location of the 'special' folders (documents, pictures, downloads etc) to another drive.
I have that configuration here, with the OS and programs on an SSD, and the user data on a much bigger doomed spinny-rust HDD.

What I've never tried is to re-install windows, and then re-point the fresh install at the existing user folders on D.
I'm slightly concerned it will simply over-write them with nice clean empty ones!
Hopefully not.

[ian]

I've been copying the same MacOS installation forward since my first Macbook in 2006, every time I upgrade, I just restore. It's brilliant, to be honest, other than one the time it lost the Office licence (Microsoft, as ever, required a re-activation), everything is seamless.

[Woofage]

<snip>
 You can quite reasonably have one big root partition^[1],
<snip>

_{[1] That's how this machine is partitioned, but most of /home is NFS-mounted from elsewhere, so it doesn't count.}

Cheat!

[Woofage]

That's really the problem though – 'partition your drive' loses 95% of the world.

Calm down, it's not compulsory!

[Mr Larrington]

Praise be; Microsith will now actually let you point "Libraries" - Documents, Music, Pictures, Video ect ect - at a network drive.  Which I'm sure it used not to permit.  Amazeballs!

[ian]

That's really the problem though – 'partition your drive' loses 95% of the world.

Calm down, it's not compulsory!

I am calm, I'm merely pointing out the usual that this doesn't gel with the average user of a computer in 2022, for whom such concepts are dark chicanery.

[Jodel]

I moved over to Linux when support ended for Windows 7.  Performance considerations aside, I was fed up paying Micro$oft for essentially the same thing over and over again.

I'd also recommend Linux Mint as an ideal desktop for those moving from Windows.  It is very similar and most people will quickly get to grips with it.  The suggestion to check that your hardware is suitable by booting from a USB / CD is a sensible one.

I had to keep an old W7 laptop to run some very specific programs which don't have a Linux equivalent.  The other issue I had / have is configuring an old Canon laser printer with Linux.  Canon printers can be tricky in Linux, with HP printers probably being the best supported.  Normally though, the vast majority of devices will just run straight out of the box.

[woollypigs]

I've had great success with Linux Lite - https://www.linuxliteos.com/

Luddite Uncle can use it to fire up chrome and do his surfing on an rather old laptop. And best of all over the 4 or so years he have used it, the only time he have called for help was when someone dug up the phone line. It just runs and haven't thrown random nags or BSOF at him.

We had to upgrade the hardware last year, when we found out that he was copying and pasting letters around, because he had worn out various keys on the keyboard. But it wasn't was enough of an issue for him to call IT support, since he could still use the laptop to surf.

Oh and Linux Lite also had the drives for the old Broadcom wifi there's on my even older HP 10 laptop, so no faffing around looking for a driver and hooking up LAN to do so.

[Woofage]

That's really the problem though – 'partition your drive' loses 95% of the world.

Calm down, it's not compulsory!

I am calm, I'm merely pointing out the usual that this doesn't gel with the average user of a computer in 2022, for whom such concepts are dark chicanery.

Restore if you want. This person's not for restoring.

Did you miss the bit where I wrote that it's not for novices?

[Kim]

I had to keep an old W7 laptop to run some very specific programs which don't have a Linux equivalent.  The other issue I had / have is configuring an old Canon laser printer with Linux.  Canon printers can be tricky in Linux, with HP printers probably being the best supported.  Normally though, the vast majority of devices will just run straight out of the box.

Much like Linux compatibility being a good heuristic for long-term driver support, the Rule According To Kim™ for printers is that they should speak Postscript over Ethernet^[1].  Anything that doesn't is a printer-shaped-object, and you're in for a world of pain with drivers etc, rather than just loading an appropriate PPD^[2] and getting on with it^[3].


_{[1] Preferably wired Ethernet, like dog intended, not The Devil's Radio.
[2] Windows, which as we all know isn't ready for the desktop, pretty much ensures that you need to install some bloaty driver suite in order to do this anyway.
[3] For printer values of 'getting on with it' that include smeary output, paper jams, fussiness about toner cartridges and so on.  They were after all sent from hell to make us miserable.}

[Woofage]

Canon printers can be tricky in Linux, with HP printers probably being the best supported.  Normally though, the vast majority of devices will just run straight out of the box.

Canon support seems OK now. The black PSO* next to me is a Canon and installation certainly involved no more than a few clicks. Not as good as the HP in the other office though; that one just appeared automagically.

* Sorry Kim, I don't know if it's PS or not but it certainly does use the Devil's Radio  . FTR, it's predecessor was an Epson and that was no bother either. Now that I think of it, we may have had a Brother too. They all break in the end .

[mzjo]

I had to keep an old W7 laptop to run some very specific programs which don't have a Linux equivalent.  The other issue I had / have is configuring an old Canon laser printer with Linux.  Canon printers can be tricky in Linux, with HP printers probably being the best supported.  Normally though, the vast majority of devices will just run straight out of the box.

Much like Linux compatibility being a good heuristic for long-term driver support, the Rule According To Kim™ for printers is that they should speak Postscript over Ethernet^[1].  Anything that doesn't is a printer-shaped-object, and you're in for a world of pain with drivers etc, rather than just loading an appropriate PPD^[2] and getting on with it^[3].


_{[1] Preferably wired Ethernet, like dog intended, not The Devil's Radio.
[2] Windows, which as we all know isn't ready for the desktop, pretty much ensures that you need to install some bloaty driver suite in order to do this anyway.
[3] For printer values of 'getting on with it' that include smeary output, paper jams, fussiness about toner cartridges and so on.  They were after all sent from hell to make us miserable.}

But a certain number of "modern" laptops don't have wired Ethernet (including my Ubuntu one) unless you're supposed to be megaclever and repurpose the one USB port, that you're keeping for a mouse because the fondly bit complains about being fondled or goes off in a huff, into a webby sort of thing.
I don't bother now about seeing if the small cheap canon inkything will work; I keep a crappy W10 PC for that, although it would be quicker to get a hammer and chip the runes into a block of Limousin granite

[Mr Larrington]

Been halfheartedly looking for a refurb lapdancer with an Ethernet port for not-silly money but they seem to be rare beasties unless you pay Big Zlotys which in my case I have not got.

[lissotriton]

So plug your ethernet printer into your router. Then can print from any of your computers, whether they have ethernet ports or not.

Or could probably plug a USB printer into a router, but that would depend on having suitable drivers.

[Mr Larrington]

I want an Ethernet laptop not for printing – the printer is already connected to a network switch – but so it doesn’t take all day to back itself up to a NAS drive or copy Stuffs to/from other devices on the network.  The Devil’s Radio may have got quicker since I bought the current one but it's still Not To Be Trusted

[TheLurker]

Canon printers can be tricky in Linux, with HP printers probably being the best supported.  Normally though, the vast majority of devices will just run straight out of the box.

Canon support seems OK now. The black PSO* next to me is a Canon and installation certainly involved no more than a few clicks. Not as good as the HP in the other office though; that one just appeared automagically.

+1  The only wrinkle I've encountered is that the drivers that get used by default (Mint v20) print at 95% full size* or so.  The Canon supplied drivers (download from website) scale correctly.

*This is only an issue if you're printing plans or plan fragments for, say, toy aeroplanes. I doubt you'd notice it for general WP use.

[Lightning Phil]

Been halfheartedly looking for a refurb lapdancer with an Ethernet port for not-silly money but they seem to be rare beasties unless you pay Big Zlotys which in my case I have not got.

A Linux lap top with Ethernet port?  I have one, but battery is now duff, and I think the Wi-Fi card no longer works.  But it works off its power cable , and wired Ethernet port works, and lap top otherwise functions fine.

Drop me a PM if interested as I no longer use it.

[Mr Larrington]

Ta, Phil, but I need functional wifi (for taking to Abroad, whence hail the FOREIGNS) and Ethernet (for doing Stuffs at home).  And, for preference, Windows.  My (minimal) Unix experience lies a couple of decades in the past.

[rafletcher]

Ta, Phil, but I need functional wifi (for taking to Abroad, whence hail the FOREIGNS) and Ethernet (for doing Stuffs at home).  And, for preference, Windows.  My (minimal) Unix experience lies a couple of decades in the past.

Like this?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234546961206?hash=item369c169b36%3Ag%3AvlYAAOSwJ7FieuDV&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4FKxn%2Fn9os1gwtAZz3O70ijzlVeTXUvyrXydEX%2Fngd%2BXp1fkIjpZDTabXo8q8qqW1Zb9KH849S5YKzVzMJj6zPkz%2B4ta1SNccZlnBu70wJgY8d3PTTTBANddRmwJWhLlpUWQEjhk0%2BK0QBi0XsVMDxkrPZn2A%2FTI8IoruMtEAAGsftFoaafGp80ouwlPMexc1evp%2BIQPcmj6%2BLWzL8dBycBJSSvDYVJlFqStNQIF26AyjsobdZ%2Flx37bMHn2dpteIqo%2Bkm6GA6w39p1KsTo6zOde1x8928GyTIZL6Pbb5pJC%7Ctkp%3ABFBM_IyFv69g&LH_BIN=1

We get “second user” ones at work. They seem to mostly work, and have the requisite Ethernet connection.

[Mr Larrington]

Something very much like that, in fact, though I'd need to check out its requirements for what kind of voles it eats when charging.

[hubner]

IME the biggest problem with Linux is getting printers and scanners to work with it.

And a USB TV tuner didn't work at all.

[quixoticgeek]

IME the biggest problem with Linux Computers is getting printers and scanners to work with it.

And a USB TV tuner didn't work at all.

Fixed that for you.

[hubner]

They worked on Windows.

[quixoticgeek]

They worked on Windows.

For what values of work?

I've been in IT support since last millennium, and printers are horrendous devil machines.

The least worst option is as Kim says, ethernet cabled printer that talks postscript. But it's far from ideal.

J

[HectoJ]

IME the biggest problem with Linux is getting printers and scanners to work with it.

And a USB TV tuner didn't work at all.

What flavours are you using? And how old is your printer/scanner? I have never had problems using Mint (Debian), Ubuntu or even MX Linux. The scanner plugs and and the driver is a generic one included in the Linux install.

For printers, it is much the same, although you might not have all of the controls as with the driver under Win/Mac, I can get my Epson to print without any problems.