Author Topic: Linux for dummies  (Read 8670 times)

Linux for dummies
« on: 14 June, 2022, 12:37:08 am »
EILI5!

Explain it like I'm 5! Seriously I've read people have extended the life of computers by installing Linux. What is it about Linux that makes it run better on older computers than Windows? How to swap from Windows to Linux on an old PC? What are the benefits? Who does it suit most? Everyone?

My partner brought her old laptops home from work and there's 5 to 8 year old laptops that I'm wondering if Linux on them might make them OK for my 9 year old son to use.  He's likely to just use for games and YouTube.  Would Linux be a good idea? Are there any games for Linux? Will the old laptop run at an OK speed? I don't suppose there's minecraft for Linux too?

Finally how easy is it to install Linux on an old Windows laptop? I'm not into the nitty gritty of IT. I can pick up programs like the various office ones quote easily but not into the techy stuff that much.

Basically if anyone can answer these questions I'd be grateful.

Kim

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #1 on: 14 June, 2022, 01:16:01 am »
Explain it like I'm 5! Seriously I've read people have extended the life of computers by installing Linux. What is it about Linux that makes it run better on older computers than Windows?

The short answer is 'less software bloat', partially due to having evolved from a design philosophy of being built up from small tools that do a simple job well working together, rather than swiss-army-knives that do everything.  But mostly due to an absence of commercial pressures to do otherwise.

Much of a Linux environment is directly inherited from the Unix systems of the 1970s, when computers were a lot less powerful, so the basic operating system runs well on less powerful hardware.  Obviously the 'desktop' applications (browsers, office suites, etc) are modern megaliths, but since you're not forced to have background bloat consuming resources, they can still run  a bit better. 


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How to swap from Windows to Linux on an old PC?

You install a Linux distribution on the computer, in ostensibly the same way that you'd install Windows or MacOS on the computer.

Since you're asking the question, this probably isn't something you've ever done.  In short, you'd boot from some sort of removable media (used to be a CD or DVD, but these days more commonly a USB flash drive) rather than the computer's hard disk (or SSD), into an environment designed for installing the OS.  It will then walk you through erasing the contents of the computer hard disk, copying the new OS over, and setting it up to boot independently.  You'd then reboot without the removable media, and the computer would be running the new OS.

(There's a lot that can potentially go wrong during this process, leaving you with a computer that doesn't have a bootable OS on it.  It's less bad than it used to be, if only because these days you probably have access to another device so you can search the web for help.)


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What are the benefits? Who does it suit most? Everyone?

There's no short answer to this.  Stereotypically, it most suits people who know a lot about computers, because Linux environments tend to expose the user to more of the 'under-the-bonnet' stuff.  Beyond that, its main advantage is that it's free, it works well on older hardware, and once you get everything set up the way you want it, if you don't meddle with things, it's generally more inclined to stay working without updates breaking or changing things.


Quote
My partner brought her old laptops home from work and there's 5 to 8 year old laptops that I'm wondering if Linux on them might make them OK for my 9 year old son to use.  He's likely to just use for games and YouTube.  Would Linux be a good idea?

Possibly.  He might learn something.


Quote
Are there any games for Linux? Will the old laptop run at an OK speed? I don't suppose there's minecraft for Linux too?

IANAgamer, but:

Gaming tends to be where Linux lags behind[1], because it's not in most people's commercial interest to specifically support it.  I don't know much about gaming, but I believe some Steam games will work, and Minecraft is a possibility.

Performance will be in line with what you'd expect from the same computer running Windows.  Games tends to be limited by the performance of the CPU and graphics hardware; a more efficient operating system is unlikely to gain you much (and poor support of advanced features of the graphics hardware can be a real probelm)


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Finally how easy is it to install Linux on an old Windows laptop?

Somewhere between put-the-CD-in-click-'OK'-a-few-times-and-away-you-go and a circle of hell where you'll spend weeks banging your head against the foibles of BOISes and bootloaders and partition schemes and obscure device drivers, eventually get it to work, but discover it crashes whenever you close the lid or something.  Basically just like Windows (except these days when you buy a computer, the manufacturer's already done all that shit for you, and sells you the thing that mostly works).

Unless you're doing this for learning's sake, I'd suggest you want to bring in someone with more experience.  If you're lucky someone will have written about the specifics of installing a given Linux distribution[2] on the specific model of laptop, which is always a good starting point, if only for determining that it's a terrible idea[3].


The usual suspects will be along in a minute to tell you that:

a) Linux is for elitist nerdy schmucks, and don't wast your time on it.
2) You should use their favourite distribution, because reasons.
iii) Get a Mac.


[1] That and 'office' applications.  You may have noticed that the world's leading vendor of office software is also a major OS vendor.  You can probably work out why they don't release a version of their office applications for a free OS.  There are some alternatives, which are usually fine for basic tasks, but fall short of being the Real Thing.
[2] The great thing about open source software is that anyone can come along, make a copy, change a few things, and release their alternative version.  Different distributions tend to have a different focus.  One might be designed to run well on old hardware.  One might try to stay bang up-to-date with the latest media applications.  One might be designed to be easy to use.  One might be designed to be really secure.  One might be deisgned to change as little as possible over time.  One might be brown.  Etc.
[3] Linux compatibility is a good litmus test for long-term viability of hardware.  If it's well-supported in Linux, it'll probably stay well-supported in Windows or whatever too.

Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #2 on: 14 June, 2022, 07:39:29 am »
If you only want to use the old laptop as a minimal backup machine then look into Chrome OS Flex - it'll repurpose the old box as a Chromebook. Very easy, painless, an no going back.
If you want to go full Linux then do a bit of homework, burn a modern distribution onto a memory stick and follow the instructions - 8 times out of 10 you'll be fine. The other 2 times will be a world of pain.

I'd suggest sticking to Ubuntu or Mint, but I can't remember trying any distribution (distro) that didn't work. The advantage of staying with the mainstream is small, but there tends to be better on line support although the forums get geeky and impenetrable very quickly for even the most straightforward question.

I'm entirely Chrome and Linux here, and have been for some years, I don't do gaming, and don't consider myself particularly interested in computing.
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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #3 on: 14 June, 2022, 08:04:24 am »
Mostly what Kim said.
My recent experiences have been smooth, with less of the weird install issues. Slightly old but not special interest hardware probably makes it more likely that someone’s fixed any problems already.

I’d add that you can boot Linux from a usb stick as well as install. Which lets you have a go and see if you like it without wiping things out.

nicknack

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #4 on: 14 June, 2022, 08:34:07 am »
I've been on Linux since the days of Windows XP. Manjaro on this small HP computer and Ubuntu on three others - one being an ancient laptop.

It's a while since I've had to do much tinkering with command line stuff, everything runs pretty smoothly. Can't comment on gaming.

Basically what the others said. It's definitely worth a try.
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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #5 on: 14 June, 2022, 09:05:01 am »
You dont have anything to lose since you have a bunch of old laptops to play with. Try it on one.

I would recommend Ubuntu to start with. Not because its the best (for whatever your definition of best is) but because:

1) Its incredibly easy to install even if you know nothing about Linux. Graphical installer thats smoother than the Windows one.

2) Its probably the one with the mots support out there at the moment. If you have an issue and google it the answers are likely to be about Ubuntu.

3) Its good enough for most people

Personally I'm a massive fan of Arch Linux on older hardware as its very easy to install only what you need and nothing else but you really need some idea of how Linux and Unix in general works before you can take advantage of that and it's fiddly to get it up and running properly and a bit of a nightmare to someone new to Linux.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

ian

Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #6 on: 14 June, 2022, 09:26:08 am »
It works, though it's rough around the edges – whatever people tell you, you will end up staring at a command line at some point – and isn't always straightforward. You'll hit a problem eventually that will require significant googling on groups full of men wanting to impress everyone by how much they know about Linux (which they'll do by belittling you – though if you want a quick answer, just pretend to be a girl). It's often a bit clunky. The only games that work will be steam-powered. And not that Steam.

But it's an effective OS that should let you do the majority of things that you'd want to do with a computer. There's nothing to lose by trying it.

Woofage

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #7 on: 14 June, 2022, 09:43:46 am »
It works, though it's rough around the edges – whatever people tell you, you will end up staring at a command line at some point – and isn't always straightforward. You'll hit a problem eventually that will require significant googling on groups full of men wanting to impress everyone by how much they know about Linux (which they'll do by belittling you – though if you want a quick answer, just pretend to be a girl). It's often a bit clunky. The only games that work will be steam-powered. And not that Steam.

I'm going to disagree here. I've run Linux as my main OS for around 15 years and I would say that for the past 10 (at least) I've never needed to use the command line*.

* I do, because often it's quicker for some tasks but that's a choice thing.

But yes to Steam. I'm not a gamer either but I understand there are many titles available on that platform, and Steam OS is a flavour of Linux.

You dont have anything to lose since you have a bunch of old laptops to play with. Try it on one.

I would recommend Ubuntu to start with. Not because its the best (for whatever your definition of best is) but because:

Or Mint. The desktop environment is more traditional.

All the leading Linux distros have live demos. You can try the OS without installing anything on the hard drive.
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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #8 on: 14 June, 2022, 10:04:15 am »
Many sinful modern-type games will thrash the GPU mercilessly while not asking for that much effort from the CPU.  Certainly far less than than transcoding media files or creating large compressed archives.  Old laptops will be notably deficient in graphics power so probably not the best choice for driving virtual racing cars or shooting virtual Enemies of Missis Kwin.  Chess would probably work OK though :demon:

This Unit freely confesses to making much use of the – whisper it – Windows command line and fervently hopes Microsith will not phase out the DOSalike prompt in favour of the hideously impenetrable dog's breakfast that is PowerShell at least until said Unit is in his dotage.
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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #9 on: 14 June, 2022, 11:20:29 am »
I started messing around with Linux back in the days of W98SE, mainly because my first PC had a pirated M$ system and I didn't like the idea much. In the 20 years since I discovered Linux I have never used or even learnt to use the command line, BASH scripts or whatever else. I am definitely not a geek! At first this severly limited my activities, as did not knowing how to properly install stuffs and find workarounds for Windows stuffs. Which taught me to use what was available in the initial system and in its repositories (where you look for software that will, mostly, work). I have had a PC dual booting Windows and various linuxes (XP and Mandrake, XP and Xandros), I have used a "live" CD a lot (Mandrake Move, Knoppix and Puppy, versions from 0.6 onwards). I have learnt to accept that there are things I will never do without Windows (although competent others undoubtedly would) , some of which I simply don't do because the other side don't accept that I might not want to use their preferred system and others for which I swallow my pride (like anything to do with the french administration).
I now have a laptop with Ubuntu and another one with W10 (that I would love to convert to Linux since the W10 is so dog slow! - but is probably more use as a W10 box). You should be aware of two problems that you might come across 1) that someone (typically Intel) has made it impossible to get at the BIOS so that you can install something other than Windows (problem on my current Ubuntu laptop, solved by the shop - new laptop - and on the W10 laptop above where I have never managed the manip to get into the BIOS in the first place). 2)The OS you are trying to install might simply be incompatible with your hardware (people won't believe how many popular and acclaimed Linuxes that have refused to work on my boxes for a variety of reasons). Using USB sticks makes this an easy one, just load another distro and away you go. Try them all as far as possible in version live before deciding what, if anything, you want to install.
There are I believe some Linuxes that have been developed specifically for gamesplaying.
Bon chance

ian

Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #10 on: 14 June, 2022, 11:56:44 am »
Milage might vary, but I run a couple of Linux VMs, and while not routinely, I've certainly had to occasionally engage with the terminal. Possibly that is lacunae in my knowledge of GUI tools and the remnant of Unix that hides in my brains just makes it the solution of least resistance.

Kim

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #11 on: 14 June, 2022, 12:28:28 pm »
I think the thing is that GUIs aren't inherently better.  On a good day they make the learning curve less steep, and people who've never used command lines often assume they're impenetrable hacker witchcraft, largely because this is how they're portrayed in the media[1].  Expert users will certainly be able to do all sorts of clever things with shell scripts and pipelines and so on, which feeds into this perception.

But if you step back from all that baggage:

- Command lines make it hard to discover functionality.  Yes there's --help and man pages and such, but a lot of *nix commands have names that are obtuse acronyms or puns on an old command that performed a similar function.  The searching program being called 'grep' or the page-at-a-time program being called 'less' makes sense when you're familiar with them, but it's completely unintuitive to a new user.

- Familiarity with MSDOS won't help you much in a *nix environment, or vice-versa.

- Some people are bad at manipulating text precisely.

- Some people find graphical icons meaningless.  A lot of modern GUIs lack text.

- GUIs are usually a better fit for applications that do graphical things.

- Command lines are good for doing the same thing repeatedly.  Want to resize a photo?  Just load it into GIMP and resize.  Want to resize a directory full of photos to the same size?  Probably a command line job.  Want to resize all the photos every time you connect your camera?  Probably worth writing a script.

- Command lines have a substantial advantage that they're vastly easier to document.  If I'm trying to help you with a printer problem I can tell you to enter "sudo service cups restart" and you can copy&paste it into a terminal verbatim without having to understand it.  You can write it down for next time.  (The same goes for keypress-driven applications.  People like my mum, who grew up in a world where machines had buttons and levers for each function, were much happier in the Wordperfect for DOS era when you could write a list of "press this key combination to save, press this key combination to print" type instructions, rather than having to become literate in GUI metaphors[2].)

- Often (particularly on *nix systems) a GUI is just a wrapper for a command-line program, and using the command-line directly allows you to bypass flaws in that wrapper.  I'm glaring at you, networkmanager.

- A lot of what people talk about when they say "Linux command line" is in fact just editing text files.  Editing text files is computer 101 stuff, and there are countless tools to do it to suit every preference[3].  Knowing what to put in them is the complicated bit, but see above re ease of documentation.  (Storing settings in text files also provides the convenience of being able to make a backup copy of how things were before you started fiddling.)

I'd describe myself as basically competent in a unix shell environment, and basically incompetent in the Microsoft equivalent.  In day to day use, I mix and match between command line and GUI applications, depending on what I'm doing.  Sometimes one is the better tool for the job.  Sometimes the job is similar to one I've done before I go to whatever I'm most familiar with, even if it's not the most efficient.


[1] No self-respecting Hollywood hacker would operate their computer with a mouse.  It needs to be frantic typing, cryptic green text and things that go 'beep'.
[2] She'd completed several college courses on advanced MS Office skills before the day she saw me drag a window from one monitor to another and realised what a 'window' was.
[3] If you're having a bad day with bootloaders you might be forced to use vi, but it's hardly ever necessary.

ian

Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #12 on: 14 June, 2022, 12:51:35 pm »
I think people (of the younger variety) are unfamiliar with typing actual commands and you are correct, the oh-so-clever crypticness of Unixian commands is offputting and annoying, as is having to look up the alphabet of command options.

I never figured out MS-DOS command lines, but I grew up wrestling Solaris on a SparcStation. I forget there are people before me who prefer just to yank a lever and unleash a satisfying billow of steam. I did have to remember how create a symbolic link the other week, and I was uncommonly pleased to succeed (eventually, it helps to get things the right way around).

But anyway, on point, Linux maybe has a few rough edges in the UX department but it works. I think most desktop OSes are really a choice of preference these days.

Kim

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #13 on: 14 June, 2022, 01:06:39 pm »
I keep making tongue-in-cheek references to 'Windows not being ready for the desktop', but watching barakta (who is highly computer literate, but not a programmer or sysadmin) using computers makes me think it's not a joke any more.  Her $ork laptop is forever becoming unusable because some centrally-managed update has broken something she needs for her job.  Her infrequently-used personal Windows always seems to need to reboot to apply updates whenever she wants to use it for something.  Her daily-driver Debian desktop mostly just keeps chugging along, with occasional Linux-version-of-the-app-isn't-as-good-as-the-Windows-one problems[1].   Windows gives her migraines because it no longer lets you change the fonts or colours of the window manager, other than to one of about 4 pre-defined themes.  Every couple of years I upgrade her Debian to a new release, and she sometimes gets upset that the fonts have changed, but those can be changed back, and otherwise updates happen quietly in the background.


[1] This effect is commutative: The Windows version of Thunderbollocks is cursed.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #14 on: 14 June, 2022, 05:32:55 pm »
- Command lines are good for doing the same thing repeatedly.  Want to resize a photo?  Just load it into GIMP and resize.  Want to resize a directory full of photos to the same size?  Probably a command line job.  Want to resize all the photos every time you connect your camera?  Probably worth writing a script.

Veering somewhat OT ["No change there then!" - Ed.] I haz a FREE!!1! Windows program yclept "Faststone Image Resizer" which can do all those Stuffs from the GUI.  You can save your settings for different jobs for e.g. 200x200 images for album artwork or 1024x768 for the skeletal pipe at the Battle Mountain Super 8 and load 'em up as required.  Only gripe is that it can't remember which directory it was in last time you used it.

This effect is commutative: The Windows version of Thunderbollocks is cursed.

Oh yes.  Evil C Boardman is probably one of the developers.  Though I did suss how to make it not keep quiet about messages that my enormous collection of Smert Spamionam filters have moved out of the Inbox.
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quixoticgeek

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #15 on: 14 June, 2022, 06:37:29 pm »

These days the modern Linux distro feels like a least worst option. I've been using Unix's and Linux's since the last millenium, with my primary OS being linux since about 2002-3.

But I am the sort of geek who has (checks ps -ef | grep xterm | wc -l) 32 terminals open (and 150+ tabs in chrome). I am a linux sysadmin for the day job.

If you just want to see what it's like an ubuntu live usb stick is the thing to try. It's not perfect, but it'll give you an idea for how it feels.

Games wise, there's a surprisingly amount available via steam. If your machine has the grunt.

Linux should be fine on a 5+ year old laptop (my personal laptop is 5+ years old, and works fine). But you may want to choose a lighter weight desktop environment than the default gnome or what ever it is ubtuntu uses these days. How exactly is left as an exercise for those who can google.

If you have specific linux questions tho, will be happy to try and help.

J
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Kim

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #16 on: 14 June, 2022, 08:12:27 pm »
- Command lines are good for doing the same thing repeatedly.  Want to resize a photo?  Just load it into GIMP and resize.  Want to resize a directory full of photos to the same size?  Probably a command line job.  Want to resize all the photos every time you connect your camera?  Probably worth writing a script.

Veering somewhat OT ["No change there then!" - Ed.] I haz a FREE!!1! Windows program yclept "Faststone Image Resizer" which can do all those Stuffs from the GUI.  You can save your settings for different jobs for e.g. 200x200 images for album artwork or 1024x768 for the skeletal pipe at the Battle Mountain Super 8 and load 'em up as required.  Only gripe is that it can't remember which directory it was in last time you used it.

Probably a truism that if *nix makes it easy to molish a clever script to do what you want, Windows is the platform that someone's already written a utility for to do it.

BrianI

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #17 on: 14 June, 2022, 08:15:41 pm »
If you want a nice, easy to forward Linux Distrobution, then I highly recommend "Linux Mint"

https://linuxmint.com/

The Cinnamon desktop version has an interface very similar in look and feel to Windows 7.


SoreTween

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #18 on: 15 June, 2022, 08:22:32 am »
I think Kim's first reply is a little doomey particularly about things going wrong during install. The whole process whereby you boot from usb/CD first then use the full os to do the install is intended to reveal issues.  If your hardware boots successfully off the removable media it 99.99999% will off a full install. The one in 10 million is something having a brain fart during the process rather than in unrevealed incompatability.

Another vote for Linux Mint for two reasons. First it is Ubuntu underneath with all the advantages pcolbeck & BrianI mention. Second, the developers of it are forbidden to use modern hardware, they have to use something 5+ years old. If any distribution is going to be trouble free on old kit it's this one.

(Oh dear dog I wish there was a version of faststone for linux, it's the mutts. And mspaint.)
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Kim

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #19 on: 15 June, 2022, 12:40:02 pm »
I think Kim's first reply is a little doomey particularly about things going wrong during install. The whole process whereby you boot from usb/CD first then use the full os to do the install is intended to reveal issues.  If your hardware boots successfully off the removable media it 99.99999% will off a full install. The one in 10 million is something having a brain fart during the process rather than in unrevealed incompatability.

I suppose it's been a while since I installed Linux on a laptop (to be fair, it's been a while since I installed Linux on anything that wasn't a VM or Raspberry Pi, where you know it's going to just work).  Desktops and servers are usually fine, but IME laptops tend to have issues with things like proper trackpad drivers and power management that are crucial to their laptopiness.  Maybe that's less of a problem if people just use them as desktops, as is the modern trend?  Certainly your chances of everything working are better on older hardware.

Yes, running live from removable media makes it a lot less of a gamble.  I suppose my own experiences of starting out with Linux as a largely clueless Amiga/DOS/Windows user just aren't applicable, as things have moved on since the late 90s.

Woofage

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #20 on: 16 June, 2022, 11:34:06 am »
I think Kim's first reply is a little doomey particularly about things going wrong during install. The whole process whereby you boot from usb/CD first then use the full os to do the install is intended to reveal issues.  If your hardware boots successfully off the removable media it 99.99999% will off a full install. The one in 10 million is something having a brain fart during the process rather than in unrevealed incompatability.

Indeed. My current Babbage Engine (a Dell laptop about 3 1/2 years old) took about 15 minutes to do a full install of Linux Mint. The fiddliest bit is hitting whatever function key is require to select the boot medium at the right time. All that was required after that was to set the external (USB-C) monitor resolution etc and install the printer which seems to happen automagically.

Top tip (although novices may find this tricky): during installation, partition your drive. Having the system on a separate "boot" partition (say 20GB) and your user files on another (the rest of the space) means that you can completely nuke the system partition to install a different or newer version of Linux without touching your user files or settings.
Pen Pusher

ian

Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #21 on: 16 June, 2022, 12:53:28 pm »
That's really the problem though – 'partition your drive' loses 95% of the world.

Kim

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #22 on: 16 June, 2022, 01:03:27 pm »
That's really the problem though – 'partition your drive' loses 95% of the world.

Most people don't understand the difference between memory and storage.  They're never going to understand drive partitions.

But that's fine.  You can quite reasonably have one big root partition[1], and it'll work at least as well as it does for Windows users.  Keeping /home separate so you can blow away the OS is convenient, if you're in the habit of blowing away the OS.  Which means you're the sort of person who understands partitions.  But it's not Windows 98.  The whole point is that you don't have to do a clean install every 6 months.


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

Mr Larrington

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #23 on: 16 June, 2022, 01:11:00 pm »
While we’re at it can I have a mini-rantetto about Microsith’s:
  • C:\Program Files versus C:\Program Files (x86) nonsense, and
  • Their insistence on bunging everything on the same drive as the OS rather than looking for additional disky hardware and then, y'know, asking you where you want to put Stuffs
?

[“No” – Ed.]
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Kim

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Re: Linux for dummies
« Reply #24 on: 16 June, 2022, 01:27:12 pm »
Ohdog yes.  Also the rule of thumb that

say 20GB

is enough for a system partition falls flat on its face where Microsoft are involved.  It's enough for Windows, and maybe a massive update and associated roll-back data or two.  But try to install anything useful, and you'll be wanting an order of magnitude more room.  And that's before you generate any user data.

Windows-land is slowly getting the hang of storing user data separate from program files, but if you think you can simply put Documents and Settings on another disk to isolate the important stuff from the OS cruft, you're in for a disappointment.