Switching to Linux full time

Marsden

I've an old laptop with Ubuntu on it but it just sits at home being used for Facebook and the likes. My newer laptop is used for college (computer science) and has windows 8. I've dabbled with the idea of putting the Ubuntu onto this too as the sole OS. The only thing stopping me is the thought that I might come across something I want that will only run in windows ie Borland or a super meat boy. Will wine run anything I'd be stuck on, would I have any regrets if I swap over?

Khannie

If you're at that point then take the plunge. Once you have taken the plunge you'll find alternatives or in a very rare scenario you'll use a VM. I took the plunge a long time ago and I am *so glad* that I did.

syklops

Marsden wrote: »

I've an old laptop with Ubuntu on it but it just sits at home being used for Facebook and the likes. My newer laptop is used for college (computer science) and has windows 8. I've dabbled with the idea of putting the Ubuntu onto this too as the sole OS. The only thing stopping me is the thought that I might come across something I want that will only run in windows ie Borland or a super meat boy. Will wine run anything I'd be stuck on, would I have any regrets if I swap over?

Take the plunge. There is nothing stopping you running a Windows 8 VM and doing whatever you need to on that. I have a VM for Office.

Your life will become easier, and you will get more done in Linux, plus you will learn it better than if you just dabble.

rebeve

Marsden wrote: »

I've an old laptop with Ubuntu on it but it just sits at home being used for Facebook and the likes. My newer laptop is used for college (computer science) and has windows 8. I've dabbled with the idea of putting the Ubuntu onto this too as the sole OS. The only thing stopping me is the thought that I might come across something I want that will only run in windows ie Borland or a super meat boy. Will wine run anything I'd be stuck on, would I have any regrets if I swap over?

You could also dual boot and know that you have the option to boot into windows .

You will very quickly forget about windows .

Marsden

rebeve wrote: »

You could also dual boot and know that you have the option to boot into windows .

You will very quickly forget about windows .

I decided to go with this so I have me little safety net.

henryporter

VM would be much better, having to reboot to another OS is a right pain in the bum, plus for all you would end up using Windows for it would be a waste of space.

PropJoe10

As previous posters said, I'd advise you to install Win8 as a virtual machine in Linux, if you want to have access to Windows. Dual booting is messy and annoying. You can use the likes of https://www.virtualbox.org/ to set up different operating systems as virtual machines i.e. run an OS within an OS. Its free and very easy to use.

PS: If you like Linux and have tried Ubuntu, try out Xubuntu - basically Ubuntu with the XFCE desktop environment. I find it faster and easier to use than the standard Ubuntu Unity desktop environment.

humbert

I would, and do, dual boot. I don't find it messy or annoying. VMs are fine but personally I always find them a little sluggish by comparison.

excollier

Dual boot - that way you get the best out of both set ups, but isn't it problematic with Win 8? UEFI, secure boot and all that?

Khannie

Dual boot is a pain in the jacksy IMO. A properly configured VM should only have about a 5-10% hit in performance versus "bare metal" (God I hate that phrase). Besides, you're only going to want the VM for probably 1 or 2 applications. I genuinely cannot understand dual booting these days.

syklops

Khannie wrote: »

Dual boot is a pain in the jacksy IMO. A properly configured VM should only have about a 5-10% hit in performance versus "bare metal" (God I hate that phrase). Besides, you're only going to want the VM for probably 1 or 2 applications. I genuinely cannot understand dual booting these days.

Agreed. If you dual boot, you will really only use linux half the time, because you will boot into windows to use what ever program it is you cant live with out, but you wont boot back into linux to browse or do whatever you want to do, you will just stay in Windows. You will have to make the conscious decision to use Linux to get the value out of it. But at the end of the day its your decision. Nowadays, I use Linux for everything with the exception of work documents which I use office for on an XP VM.

rebeve

excollier wrote: »

Dual boot - that way you get the best out of both set ups, but isn't it problematic with Win 8? UEFI, secure boot and all that?

Turn off secure boot and the job is oxo .It was much easier than I was led

to believe .I would prefer to use a Ouija board than win 8, a complete bucket

of you know what IMHO .

demanufactured

Can you run games with wine in Linux?

excollier

I have two dual boot computers, one with Win Vista, and I cannot see any reason to boot into Vista other than the occasional use of satellite box firmware/channel list updates, which are very rare. If they had linux support, Vista and Microsoft would be gone immediately.

PropJoe10

demanufactured wrote: »

Can you run games with wine in Linux?

Yep you can, there's a front-end for Wine called PlayOnLinux that makes it pretty easy to do. They may not run at 100% capacity though, especially graphics-wise. It really depends on the game you want to play.

Marsden

Thanks for the advice. I have it dual booted since yesterday, I'm not too worried about losing the space as its just me college laptop and I wouldn't really use it up. I had thought that there would be a bigger loss in operating speed that 5-10% with a vm. Anyway I assume I won't lose anything if I decide after a while to remove win 8 from the drive, its on a separate partition.

PropJoe10

Marsden wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. I have it dual booted since yesterday, I'm not too worried about losing the space as its just me college laptop and I wouldn't really use it up. I had thought that there would be a bigger loss in operating speed that 5-10% with a vm. Anyway I assume I won't lose anything if I decide after a while to remove win 8 from the drive, its on a separate partition.

Nah you wont lose anything but the dual boot bootloader can become a bit messy if you decide to uninstall Windows 8. Thats the problem with dual booting, I always had bootloader problems when I tried it. VM is definitely the way to go - I'm running Xubuntu on this laptop I'm using now, with an XP VM for things like Netflix and Sky Go.

Marsden

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Nah you wont lose anything but the dual boot bootloader can become a bit messy if you decide to uninstall Windows 8. Thats the problem with dual booting, I always had bootloader problems when I tried it. VM is definitely the way to go - I'm running Xubuntu on this laptop I'm using now, with an XP VM for things like Netflix and Sky Go.

Are programs run through VM windowed. Can you watch your netflix full screen?

Khannie

If you can watch if fullscreen in windows, you can watch it fullscreen in the VM.

PropJoe10

Marsden wrote: »

Are programs run through VM windowed. Can you watch your netflix full screen?

You can actually maximise the VM to run the full size of your monitor. You install a guest additions package into the OS running in the VM, which will allow you to maximise to the full monitor size. You can then watch whatever you like as if the VM is your main OS.

syklops

demanufactured wrote: »

Can you run games with wine in Linux?

You can run most games with wine, and steam is now on Linux and many of their games run natively.

sulc84

Can someone post tutorial how to use linux and win together on PC ? Is it posible without conflicts ?

excollier

Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPUX-0j5WCo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02jP2Bf-DPU

No conflicts.

PropJoe10

excollier wrote: »

Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPUX-0j5WCo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02jP2Bf-DPU

No conflicts.

Nice, aside from the fact it shows Linux Mint Just never liked Mint for some reason. There's no conflicts at all with running Windows and Linux btw. If you dont fancy the dual boot in the videos above, install a Linux distro in a virtual machine using VirtualBox to try it out first.

excollier

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Nice, aside from the fact it shows Linux Mint Just never liked Mint for some reason. There's no conflicts at all with running Windows and Linux btw. If you dont fancy the dual boot in the videos above, install a Linux distro in a virtual machine using VirtualBox to try it out first.

Just used Mint as an example, although I use it myself, the principle is similar for a lot of distros. Many an installer follows a similar process.

Take a look here, main vid and several others on same page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgIpV6zCZZA

Johnboy1951

I believe a dual boot as an initial set up is to be recommended.

That does not mean you cannot use a VM in Linux ...... but it does provide a 'safety net' as said.

That safety net is more for 'ease of mind' than serving any useful purpose.

After some time ...... when you are sure you can do everything you need in Linux or the VM, you can wipe the Win install (format the partition/s) and make use of the space freed for data/backup/storage/whatever.

I do not use any Win and only have a couple of Win VMs which I very rarely open ..... and then most likely to try some software I heard about. I never do any 'work' in the VM.

Good luck on your journey in Linux

human 19

Netflix is avialable on Ubuntu now, or any Ubuntu fork. Thia is what led me to delete my windows partition after I hadnt used it at all in 6 months.
It ran much better that way for me as opposed to a VM. Sound and video can stutter in a lot of VMs .Perfect with the Ubuntu "app" installed directly in Linux

Johnboy1951

That Ubuntu 'app' is a Wine set up, is it not?

excollier

No, it's not. It runs directly from Ubuntu (and others) Windows is becoming less relevant all the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfte5su5DIA

Johnboy1951

excollier wrote: »

No, it's not. It runs directly from Ubuntu (and others) Windows is becoming less relevant all the time.

Are you sure?

How could they possibly manage to use Silverlight without the likes of Wine?

Netflix uses Silverlight.
There is no Silverlight for Linux.
Moonlight for Linux is long gone.

Maybe you could explain how this problem can be overcome without something like Wine or a VM?

EDIT: Went searching for info .......

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nativeish-netflix

The folks over at http://www.iheartubuntu.com recently put up a challenge to the Linux community to get Netflix to work natively under our beloved OS. Thankfully, Erich Hoover stepped up to the challenge and patched the Wine Project in a way to allow Firefox/Silverlight to be installed and actually work with Netflix's DRM'd Silverlight!

So yes it is using Wine.

excollier

Fair enough, my error. Pity, although I have no use for Netflix so that's ok, but it would be nice to see a native linux option soon, ramp up the argument for linux.