The Linux Thread

[Waldo 96]

Wanting to install Linux on my Windows 8 laptop. What's the thing that needs doing with the bios? They're trying to lock the machine down to Windows, and making it harder to install other OS's apparently...

[AlexAtkin 10]

I believe its UEFI Secure Boot that needs turning off in the BIOS.

[swarfendor437 14]

That is the UEFI business = secure boot! Basically the hardware checks for a signature in the software - if the two match fine - if not, you are in big trouble! Basically (but there is more to it really) mbr is dead and replaced with gpt.

 

For more information see waddler8's response here:

 

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9691073&postcount=9

 

For information I have gleaned:

 

http://www.zoringroup.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3720

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411464,00.asp

 

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/UEFI-on-Samsung-notebooks-Half-full-is-almost-broken-1827493.html

 

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/making-uefi-secure-boot-work-with-open-platforms

 

http://techrights.org/2013/01/31/bricked-by-uefi/

 

http://www.zoringroup.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4128#p19395

 

If the laptop is Samsung - DON'T!!!!

[stereolab 10]

I have just this week installed Xubuntu (12.04) on my laptop - with the intention of making the switch for good this time. Although its not the first time I've done it, here are my thoughts so far.

 

Installation

 

I used Wubi to install its from within Windows - I created a partition, downloaded the .iso, then ran wubi. The initial install was relatively easy - took about 20 minutes - I think there were two reboots - the second of which you will need to tell it to boot to Xubuntu otherwise it will start up in Windows again.

 

First log in

 

All hardware was detected without any issue - graphics, sound, keyboard, trackpad (including multitouch), wireless adapter worked no problems and connected to my router no problem.

 

Updates

 

First thing I did was to load the Update Manager and apply any updates - there were quite a few and this didn't go so smoothly - the Update Manager crashed out 3 times during the process, but eventually ran and appears to be ok now.

 

Software

 

Its a version of Ubuntu so the software centre is included - works pretty well. There are a few apps that I don't want, so I removed them - Gimp, Thunderbird, Pidgin, all removed, although again there were a few crashes on the way.

I've installed Chromium, VLC, Pinta - no issues there.

 

I also installed the Ubuntu Restricted Extras pack which includes Flash, mp3 playback etc. However included MS Font pack caused web fonts to be totally messed up in both FF and Chrome. Removing this part of the package was the only way to fix it although this took some time to figure out and is one of the reasons I've abandoned Xubuntu in the past, Still, its working ok now.

 

Customisation

 

Xubuntu uses the XFCE desktop so by default its a nice simple and elegant Silver/Grey/Blue theme. No stupid cartoon icons or idiotic 3D desktop effects here, and much better for it. It comes with two panels - top one has the main application menu, tasks and indicators - the bottom is a basic dock. I've removed the bottom dock, and switched the top one down to the bottom to give a more familiar Windows style layout - I might use Cario in the future but for now this is working fine.

 

So overall - so far so good - its a good looking distro thats easy to set up, although not without a few issues on the way - I'll stick with it for now.

[swarfendor437 14]

I stopped using WUBI after a later Ubuntu install which warned - "Using WUBI could effect your hard drive's performance"!

 

Read into that what you will!

[AngryDog 10]

Ive never used WUBI, Not sure what I used. I'll be doing all this at some point when I can be bothered

 

Need to get my desktop pc backed up first - I have a 2.5" SATA usb caddy, so just gonna get a cheap drive for it I think.

[DeathAxe 10]

Zorin looks like a poor man's windows 7. They could have least tried to make their own interface without it looking like a complete rip off of the windows 7 gui.

 

Ubuntu looks nice, it's on one of our PCs. Trouble is with unity, if I play a vid in youtube or something or have a menu with a lot of graphics; opening the menu freezes the whole thing up.

 

KDE is better for practical use, and doesn't try too hard to rip off other peoples designs. (not sure what zorin uses actually, could just be a kde or gnome skin; either way though the design is ripped off).

 

Most distros are ok for general usage, mint seems ok. Ubuntu is the main one I use if any, despite having issues with distro updates breaking the whole thing (updating it always causes the gui to just not open at all so I have to do a clean install; which is terms of windows would be a normal thing to do anyways heh)

[stereolab 10]

I agree about zorin. Why bother to switch to a new OS only to end up with a poor copy of Windows?

[swarfendor437 14]

No it is not a poor copy of Windows - you should know better you two! Windows is not GNU/Linux and 'vice versa'! The boys from Dublin did their research before launching it before they were teenagers! And it is not just Windows 7 look - you can have the traditional Gnome classic desktop or after tweaking, Cairo-Dock (Mac look).

 

It even has Unity as an option but that might be in the Premium version.

 

Education version has win2k and Mac look.

 

Zorin Lite (good for older kit) appears to be on the latest issue of Linux Format - along with 5 other distros to choose from!

 

 

Edited April 8, 2013 by swarfendor43
typo

[stereolab 10]

I can see the appeal to a new user to have something that looks like their existing set up - its just that from what I can see it looks like a poor imitation rather than a convincing copy.

 

If the point is to create a lookalike, I would say they have failed.

[DeathAxe 10]

No it is not a poor copy of Windows - you should know better you two! Windows is not GNU/Linux and 'vice versa'! The boys from Dublin did their research before launching it before they were teenagers! And it is not just Windows 7 look - you can have the traditional Gnome classic desktop or after tweaking, Cairo-Dock (Mac look).

 

It even has Unity as an option but that might be in the Premium version.

 

Education version has win2k and Mac look.

 

Zorin Lite (good for older kit) appears to be on the latest issue of Linux Format - along with 5 other distros to choose from!

 

 

 

So you are saying they have ripped off other interfaces too, got it.

[swarfendor437 14]

I can see the appeal to a new user to have something that looks like their existing set up - its just that from what I can see it looks like a poor imitation rather than a convincing copy.

 

If the point is to create a lookalike, I would say they have failed.

 

Obviously they can't do a 'lookalike' - I think M$ would be crawling all over them with IP claims!

 

---------- Post added 09-04-2013 at 14:08 ----------

 

So you are saying they have ripped off other interfaces too, got it.

 

You are forgetting that we are dealing with open source here - it is not an exact MacOSX Look - for that you need to install Cairo-Dock separately!

 

Gnome is 'open source' in much the same way as KDE - BOTH are used by the majority of GNU/Linux distributions - so they are not 'rip-offs' - that is the beauty of Copyleft!

 

https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/