Tech: So how do I Linux?

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Apr 22 - 10:18 AM

DaveRo - years ago I would have loved to have built my own computer from scratch, going through the bins and shelves over at Fry's Electronics (here in the US that was like a warehouse club for tech stuff) but Fry's went out of business a couple of years ago and there's no place else like that for this kind of job. Maybe ordering from New Egg? Walking down the aisle at Fry's and looking at all of the fancy custom cases, and your finished computer ending up like a neon-lit aquarium - that would have been fun.

I have been under the hood doing a lot of work on computers over the years - installing drives, putting in cards for this or that connection or port - I'll continue to do that. And I try to stay on top of the features of the Windows programs that I use, so I tend to only upgrade with every-other offering. I'm in Win10Pro right now, not convinced that changing to 11 will make anything better. (There were some features of Win8 that I liked, despite the general poor reception of that platform when they thought everyone was going to laptops with touch screens, and there are still a few in Win10 that completely disappear in Win11.)

That said, I'm glad Linux is there because I think the competition keeps the big guys honest. Kind of.

Naming heroes in the tech world - don't forget Hedy Lamarr.

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 28 Apr 22 - 10:33 AM

I can't remember the last time we got a ready made PC but I've not built from scratch that often. There are other starting points. You could start with a motherboard bundle (A UK supplier I've used shown here) or perhaps go a bit further with a barebones bundle with the motherboard installed in a case and probably with power supply and add your other bits from there.

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 28 Apr 22 - 11:20 AM

This is truly wonderful: I come here looking for music stuff, and I'm pitched right back into Linux history. It's as if I never left. Now I feel even more at home :-) .

{Extremely brief back story: After dabbling at home in assembler, I encountered UNIX on the PDP/11 at (surprise) Uni, after which anything else was a comedown. I use Debian if I can, Ubuntu if I must, and macOS only if someone else is paying; in our house, Microsoft is a four-letter word.}

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Daniel Kelly
Date: 28 Apr 22 - 11:23 AM

Hi Piers,

Agreed that RMS and Linus didn’t do it on their own, as the song is released ‘creative commons, share alike’, there is always scope for new verses!

The lyre was my second attempt at a hand-built approximation to an anglo-saxon lyre. There is a video discussing the build on my channel somewhere, with a link to a more detailed blog post.

Cheers, Daniel

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 May 22 - 04:41 AM

Mint has given my old Thinkpad a new lease of life and, more importantly, Mrs G, a non techie ardent windows user, is happy with it too :-D

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 05 May 22 - 05:31 AM

Linux can be good for the elderly and non-techies. I've had my parents (now mid 80s) on OpenSuse for years. When they made the switch, they (and I with fewer "callouts") found it much better than the rather less stable Windows (although Windows has improved somewhat since they were running Win2K which was around end of life).

It probably helps to have someone around (and I live with them) who's some idea as to what they are doing with it though.

Mum's PC broke down when I was in hospital for a weeks a couple of years ago and she got the local repair guy in. As far as I understand it, he told her things were a bit old (untrue, I much later found that PC (now my desktop PC) was Win 11 compatible and the system was running the latest version of that distro - I guess he was more out of his depth than being dishonest though). He sold her (at, I think, a fair price) a used Win 10 PC which at least got her back again with web browsing and email.

She was pleased when, after a short while of home recovery, I got her back to her familiar Plasma 5 KDE desktop.

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 May 22 - 12:13 PM

Jon, you recovered and your computers recovered.

I went back to the very first post just now (Mark Cohen hasn't posted in ages, he absented himself when he had too many things going on in his life - but if you're ever back - hello, Mark!) He was asking about Partition Magic (I used that back before Windows made partition shifting easy) and I also used dual operating systems (I had a Windows ME that was crap and wanted to use Win2000/NT - so we're going back a ways.) It wasn't difficult to boot into one or the other OS.

Jon and others have talked about putting Linux on a thumb drive and booting from that. Did you have to change your computer settings (BIOS) to have it look for the thumb drive when you turned on the computer, or do you do a hot swap between OS?

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 05 May 22 - 12:44 PM

I think it varies but there is often a key you can press (F12 on this PC) at the start to bring up a boot menu and you pick where to boot from there.

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Stanron
Date: 05 May 22 - 02:11 PM

I put a new OS on my desktop and changed to a solid state drive a couple of weeks ago. I went old school and burned the ISO file onto a DVD. To get to the Bios I had to press F2. I first tried F1 by rebooting and repeatedly pressing F1. It just rebooted as normal. I rebooted again pressing F2 and it went into the BIOS. I set it to boot from the DVD first and checked that the disk worked.

Only then did I take out the old hard drive and install the new.

On some computers there is an early screen in the boot sequence that tells you what to press for set up.

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 May 22 - 03:06 PM

In Windows it has commonly been F8, but I think that isn't the case in my current machine (that required a major reinstall and rebuild recently).

Subject: RE: Tech: So how do I Linux?
From: DaveRo
Date: 05 May 22 - 04:16 PM

It depends on the computer - who made it (HP, Dell, Intel, AMD, ...) and how it is set up. There is no standard procedure or function key combination. So google for 'installing Linux on Lenovo Thinkbox A123' - or whatever.

There are two ways of booting Linux from a USB stick or DVD:
- press a key during startup to get a screen to select the boot device
- set the 'boot order' to boot first from USB or DVD before HDD

That was all you needed to know until a decade ago - then along came UEFI.

Nearly all recent computers have UEFI, and UEFI has a feature called 'Secure Boot' which you may have to disable. This piece is 5 years old - the situation may have changed:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/installing-linux-on-a-pc-with-uefi-firmware-a-refresher/

Caveat: My knowledge is theoretical. My newest computer is pre-UEFI (12 years old), and I've always burned Linux onto a DVD - I've never used a USB stick.