18 replies to this topic

[Anthus]

I've spent the whole day organizing the hoarder den that is my computer. One internal hard drive, and two externals amounting to a little over half a TB of data. Manually. I have a whole new respect for slow computers . I've been meaning to do this for a while. With how often I move around, and leave one, or more computers behind, I tend to copy/ paste tons of files, every few months, and make tons of unorganized "back-ups". What does any of this have to do with Ubuntu though? Well, I'm re-installing Windows. I'm taking the plunge, and doing my three-yearly reinstall. Just gotta get that fresh clean PC feeling back, you know? I'm hoping to iron out some other performance issues with a clean install, and all new drivers. I was also going to partition my main HDD and try out Ubuntu for the hell of it. I used it like 10 years ago, when I was an idiot, and liked it, but n00b'd out, and quit using it, basically.

 

I have a few questions about it though. I'm sure it has come a long way since I used it then, but these are some concerns, or questions I have about using it. Essentially, will I still be able to play games I own on Steam, and is ZC pretty functional? These are mainly what I'm concerned about. Do most of the big emulators run on Ubuntu? I just want to know, with some minor tweaking, can it be made to functionally do everything a Windows machine can (or more)?

 

I know it is really customizable, and fully open source, and I know that anything can probably be done on it, but to someone new to the OS, would I be able to easily set it up? Is there any "bloatware" I should worry about? Any programs I should get that you would recommend? Really, just any precautions, or tips would be swell. I was looking around on Toms Hardware, and a few other sites from a search, but I want to know what you guys suggest. Also sorry if this whole post sounds really dumb.

 

 

(Plus since Microsoft is allegedly breaking Windows 7 slowly to get people on Windown 10, I better learn a new OS)

[Saffith]

I was also going to partition my main HDD and try out Ubuntu for the hell of it.

You might also consider Linux Mint. It's based on Ubuntu (and entirely compatible) and largely similar, aside from offering different interfaces by default.
Unity (Ubuntu default)
Cinnamon (Mint default 1)
MATE (Mint default 2 - and it's pronounced mah-teh, like the drink)

I like Mint more, mainly for philosophical reasons. Mint's developers are more of the mindset of not fixing what isn't broken. Ubuntu pretty much does whatever it wants.
 

Essentially, will I still be able to play games I own on Steam

If they support Linux. More and more do, but still a smallish fraction. The recent finalization of Vulkan should help, but we're not seeing that yet.
There's Wine, of course. It's not perfect, but a lot better than you'd probably guess (check the AppDB). If you want to play newer, high-end games, though, you'd probably need to dual-boot.
 

and is ZC pretty functional?

Works fine. It uses software rendering, but otherwise it'll probably run better than on Windows 8+.
 

Do most of the big emulators run on Ubuntu?

Probably? I'm a bit behind on emulators. ZSNES and FCEUX work fine, but I mainly use higan and Mednafen. Any specific ones you're wondering about?
 

I just want to know, with some minor tweaking, can it be made to functionally do everything a Windows machine can (or more)?

Give or take. Basic stuff, sure. For less common uses, you can probably find something to do what you need, but there are generally fewer options than on Windows.
 

I know it is really customizable, and fully open source, and I know that anything can probably be done on it, but to someone new to the OS, would I be able to easily set it up?

Shouldn't be a problem. Poke around a bit, and you should figure it out fast enough.
 

Is there any "bloatware" I should worry about?

Nah, not really an issue.
 

Any programs I should get that you would recommend?

Mm... Other than Wine, nothing I can think of that wouldn't be installed from the start. Maybe PySolFC? It's a really good solitaire collection.
... I don't do anything interesting.
 

Really, just any precautions, or tips would be swell.

If you do decide to dual-boot, it's easier to install Windows first. The Linux installer will recognize it and set up a select screen to show on boot. Install Windows second, and it'll set it up to boot into Windows without asking. (It can be fixed afterward, though.)

It's a bit more advanced, but if you can, it's probably a good idea to put /home on a separate partition or disk from the OS. Then if you reinstall, you can leave /home untouched, and all of your settings (and games, probably) will still be there afterward.

And remember that the install discs are all live CDs/DVDs, so you can try out different desktops a bit without making any changes to the system.

[Magi_Hero]

I second Mint. It's very light and easy to learn to use Linux on.

[Anthus]

Yeah, I planned on dual booting anyway. I still like Windows 7, and know how to use it, so I'm not fully replacing my OS yet. My plan is, partition my main 1TB HDD into two sections; one will be 600 gigs, and other will be 300 gigs, approximately, since the system likes to take up space. Windows 7 will be installed first on the main partition, then Mint, or whatever I try to use on the other. I have all of my stuff backed up to both external drives, cause I'm a paranoid freak about loosing stuff .

 

Programs, and apps will be installed onto their respective partition. Should 200GB be enough for the Linux OS? I know it is substantially smaller than Windows, so that should be fine, I'm assuming.

 

And as far as emulators go, I generally use Project 64, SNES9x, FCEMU, Virtual Boy Advance, and ePSXe. If they don't all work in Linux, its cool, I really just want to try out the OS.

 

One thing I read though, says Linux does not play nice with NTSF file systems, which is what all three of my drives are. Is that a problem? Like, do I have to copy all my stuff again to make them fat32?

 

And thanks

 

EDIT: I just realized, since I only have one internal HDD, I will need to format it to partition it, and completely wipe the old windows from it. IIRC, Windows 7's installer asks you if you want to do this, but I'm not sure. Any idea on that one?

 

So far, I have all my stuff (ZC, games projects, movies, music, emulators) backed up. I also used GameSave Manager to copy and find all my Steam saves. I am also copying all of my programs, and AppData folder as well. This is more or less to remember what I had, since a lot of old programs I don't use will be nixed anyway, and I plan on clean installing the essential ones. I am copying AppData hoping that I'll be able to transfer settings, if needed, plus that's where my AM2R save is . I don't think I'm going to copy the Steam games I already downloaded though. I have over 130GB of Steam games alone, and I don't wanna be here all day. Plus, I'm trusting this GSManager thing to have my saves. It has the ones I care about already, so it should be as easy to downloading the games I care about again, and popping in the save, which GSM does automatically. Does this sound like it will work? I don't have any registry tweaks, or any system settings I can't reconfigure, so I think this covers it all.

 

EDIT 2:

 

Wow, I have a lot of crap. Look at that ZC folder! No wonder I never finish a project. I also have every full version released, and tons of duplicate files in there, but that's another day.

Spoiler

Emulators and Games (not Steam)
Size: 39.9 GB
Files: 24,330

Movies
Size: 53.9 GB
Files: 262

Music:
Size: 59.6 GB
Files: 14,158

Pictures:
Size: 34.5 GB
Files: 5,995

Projects:
Size: 19.1 GB
Files: 34,003

ZeldaClassic:
Size: 23.3 GB
Files: 18,367

Everything Else (Documents, Desktop, Programs, AppData, Save backups, and all that shnazz)
Size: 50 GB
Files: 66,019

Total Size: 270 GB
Total Files: 163,094
Folders: 8,637

 

The entire PC has 1.5 million files. This is just my stuff I'm backing up.

[Saffith]

Programs, and apps will be installed onto their respective partition. Should 200GB be enough for the Linux OS? I know it is substantially smaller than Windows, so that should be fine, I'm assuming.

If you use separate / and /home partitions, you could probably use 50GB or even less for the OS. I've used 17.3GB after a year and a half on my current install. Otherwise, yeah, 200 should be fine.
 

And as far as emulators go, I generally use Project 64, SNES9x, FCEMU, Virtual Boy Advance, and ePSXe.

Did you mean FCEU? FCEmu appears to be an obscure Chinese emulator.
FCEUX (FCEU with some extra stuff) and VBA are both in the repo.
ePSXe and Snes9x both have Linux versions, but not .deb installers, so you'll have to find the necessary libraries yourself. Not that hard to do, but you'll likely need some help figuring out how.
Project64 is Windows-only, but it's reported to work perfectly or nearly so in Wine.
There are also other emulators for all the same systems in the repo.
 

One thing I read though, says Linux does not play nice with NTSF file systems, which is what all three of my drives are.

Individual partitions will be formatted differently.
NTFS support has advanced to the point that I wouldn't expect any problems using the Windows partition under Linux. The other way won't work, however; Windows won't read any of the filesystems Linux typically uses. You can boot into Linux and move files where Windows can read them, of course.
 

IIRC, Windows 7's installer asks you if you want to do this, but I'm not sure. Any idea on that one?

It does, yeah. Just allocate your 600GB partition and leave the rest blank, and that should be fine.
The Linux installer will also have an option to resize the Windows partition to make space, if needed.
 

Does this sound like it will work?

Probably? Kind of hard to say. You might want to get the registry, too, in case some game saves data there.

[Anthus]

Did you mean FCEU? FCEmu appears to be an obscure Chinese emulator.

 

Oops yeah. Hm, I'd be interested in trying the ones made specifically for Linux in the repo before trying to make a windows version work. This will probably come later though, I'm still copying some last minute straggler files. Might not be able to do this till tomorrow.

 

Individual partitions will be formatted differently.

NTFS support has advanced to the point that I wouldn't expect any problems using the Windows partition under Linux. The other way won't work, however; Windows won't read any of the filesystems Linux typically uses. You can boot into Linux and move files where Windows can read them, of course.

 

Okay, gotcha.

 

It does, yeah. Just allocate your 600GB partition and leave the rest blank, and that should be fine.

The Linux installer will also have an option to resize the Windows partition to make space, if needed.

 

Okay, that's what I thought. Will I need to format the other 200 through Windows' disk manager, or will the Linux installer take care of that?

 

You might want to get the registry, too, in case some game saves data there. 

 

That's already in my documents, so I have that . I use CCleaner regularly too, so it's not all cluttered. I suppose I should ask, the backup that CCleaner makes is what I would need to transfer the registry to a clean instal, right? Or should I copy it another way? Thanks.

[Saffith]

Okay, that's what I thought. Will I need to format the other 200 through Windows' disk manager, or will the Linux installer take care of that?

Linux'll do it. It should have an option along the lines of "use all unallocated space."
 

I suppose I should ask, the backup that CCleaner makes is what I would need to transfer the registry to a clean instal, right? Or should I copy it another way? Thanks.

In regedit, File->Export. In the save dialog, you can select the whole thing or just a branch.
But actually, yeah, probably not worth bothering with after all. Looks like I overestimated how much stuff is stored there. If you want to do it anyway, anything worth keeping would be under HKEY_USERS or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

[Anthus]

Cool, good to know.

 

I might make two extra partitions, and try Ubuntu, and Mint. I can always overwrite the one I don't end up using later, I suppose.

[Saffith]

Oh, here's a thing I forgot about. There's a program called PlayOnLinux. It's a Wine frontend; it'll automatically install and manage all sorts of software. If you want to try any Windows games, that's probably the easiest way to do it.
I've never really used it myself - I just do it the hard way - but from a quick test, it looks pretty good. It's in the games section of both Ubuntu's and Mint's software managers. If it says it has to remove libldap, that shouldn't be a problem.

[Anthus]

I'm downloading Mint 18 MATE, and Ubuntu Desktop amd64 now. Gonna make my boot disks, and try them out. Good thing I'm off tomorrow. I think I like MATE from my first impression better. It looks simpler, and I like the aesthetics more, but those seem highly customization across both desktop choices. 

 

And thanks, I found that PlayOnLinux thing today as well. Sounds pretty nice. I'll probably still want to learn how to do it 'the hard way' though too.

[Anthus]

So after doing a bit more reading around, I've decided to test Mint on my old laptop first, before messing with the BIOS, and all that stuff on my main computer.

 

I was successfully able to make a boot disk, and install Linux Mint 18 Sarah MATE. ... Oh, wait, at the time of typing this, I just realized I made a 64-bit boot disk instead of a 32 bit one. I was going to use this on my main computer, which has a 64 bit processor, but my laptop is 32. It did install, and I was able to look around the OS a bit (and I really like it, a lot more than the version of Ubuntu I used in like 2008). When I was installing it though, I made a 40GB partition on the hard drive so it could still boot alongside Windows 7. The thing is, I'm not able to bring up a dual boot menu in any way. I went into the boot settings on the laptop, and there is no obvious way to tell it to prompt me on which OS to boot at startup, and therefore, boots into Windows 7 by default, unless the DVD is in (I did move the boot order, and I'm comfortable with that, but some BIOS options are beyond me). So the only way to boot into Mint is to put the DVD in, and run the OS from the disk, which is slooooooow. This isn't Mint's fault though, it's a slow ass DVD drive.

 

I guess, as dumb as this might sound, should I download, and try the 32 bit version, or will it somehow still work? It worked fine from the disk. I'm able to get online, sound works, it runs smoothly, aside from the DVD lag, the Windows partition was fully visible, etc.

 

This is an old Lenovo laptop with a Pentium Dual T3400, and 2 gigs of RAM, and a weak integrated graphics chip. In spite of its old hardware, it does run Windows 7 decently enough, but it does take 5ever for it to start up. Hmm, come to think of it, I bought this thing in 2009. That's pretty damn old for a computer.

[Saffith]

That's.. Odd? I wouldn't expect a 64-bit disc to start at all on a 32-bit system. Maybe that's something to do with why the boot menu doesn't come up?
If you start the install process again, when you get to the point where it asks where to put it on the disc, do you see both OSes there?

Yeah, give the 32-bit version a try, probably. Also, in case I'm misremembering how it works, the bootloader is called GRUB. If it asks, you do want to install that.

Actually, maybe I'll try it in a virtual machine and see what it does. It's kind of been a while.

[Anthus]

 

That's.. Odd? I wouldn't expect a 64-bit disc to start at all on a 32-bit system. Maybe that's something to do with why the boot menu doesn't come up?

 

Right? That's what I would think too. That's why I didn't realize till I was typing my post >.> And yeah, that could be why the boot menu options aren't there, maybe some stuff is broken with the incorrect version after all.

 

When it showed the disks, during the first install, it showed the DVD drive, the main hard drive, and a factory restore partition which is part of the physical main hard drive.

 

What I've decided though, is that since I don't really care about this laptop, and I have anything off of it I could want, I'm just gonna do a full Linux Mint install, but, with the correct version of the OS this time. TBH, even from the disk, it seemed like it ran better than WIndows 7 on this old machine. So, what could go wrong (he said, as he plunged into the abyss of learning a new OS)?

 

The 32-bit version is almost done downloading, so we'll see what happens!

 

 

EDIT: Is that MD5 Check thing worth doing? I figure if I download it from the official site, it should be legit, right? No one mentions it in any of the videos I've seen.

[Saffith]

EDIT: Is that MD5 Check thing worth doing? I figure if I download it from the official site, it should be legit, right? No one mentions it in any of the videos I've seen.

You can't be certain about that. But it also could just download incorrectly. Things happen. It's not hard to check, anyway: https://support.micr...en-us/kb/889768

Hm. I happened to look at a GRUB config file and saw this:

# - Branding issue in Linux Mint (our EFI name is "Ubuntu" because anything else won't work)
# - Conflict between Linux Mint and Ubuntu (in multi-boot situations
# they use the same EFI name so EFI implementations can't list them both).
# That should also be a problem with derivatives, and also a problem with
# multiple installations of the same operating system (for instance in the case of Mint editions).

So it won't be able to triple-boot alongside Ubuntu.

[Anthus]

Spoiler

 

Hm. I want to do this right, and test it, but I think it is a bit over my head. I have very minimal experience with using command line stuff.

 

I also tried doing what it said in Mint's manual with MD5sum, but I get the same result. It won't give me the numbers to check with the thing on their site.

 

 

EDIT: As far as triple booting, I should get one OS working at a time before attempting three on the same system

 

EDIT: Also... what is Windows 6.1.7? Have I been lied to all these years!? :v