moving to Linux

[bobsbeer]

I'm seriously considering this for my net book which has win 8. But I don't have a disc drive. I do have a separate CD/DVD drive. I have a few programs I use such as Corel Draw and family history programs which are running on Windows as well as Office 2003 Do you need to re download these as Linux programs, if available? I do have Openoffice but went back to Office as it wasn't completely compatible or at least I couldn't figure out a solution to what I wanted to do.

 

[hairybiker]

IF you must have those programs then stick with M$. LibreOffice is fine for me but if you need something in MSO or Corel draw that you can't get with gimp then you need to stick.

 

[Springer]

Like HB says if want to play games.........:)
Been with ubuntu for ages, which went flowery, so now gone to xubutu same thing but slicker, without the shi.........
S

 

[danb]

after reading this i thought i would give it a try. i did more reading on something called ubuntu and various ways of installing. i clicked the windows installer part and it downloaded and installed without burning to a dvd or usb stick. when finished it gave me the option to restart to finish so went a head and it loaded straight into ubuntu without a choice of windows or this. everything seems ok and using it to write now but cant seem to get to any files that was originally on the pc. have i lost these? which i really hope not. i was under the impression that installing this way i wouldnt lose anything or overwrite anything. thanks

 

[TRXnMe]

Not posivitive with Ubuntu, but the versions I've used have a boot manager somewhere in the applications groop, that will allow you to set it to ask what to boot to.

To look for your Windows files make sure your file explorer has the options set to show all file types, not just Linux types.

I've only used Redhat for any period of time, that had the options set to show the wondows stuff from te box, but the boot manager required some command line level work, google will tell you how to do this for Ubuntu if one of the serious Linux techs don't spill the beans in detail first.

 

[danb]

have found the files now mate thanks after some reading on search results. still trying to get to grips with it and the email program im struggling a bit with. at the mintue emails are still coming through which have been read when using windows. upto around 950 atm and still going just not sure where i can select to mark all as read and not sure if i need to have the program active to see new mail or wether they will appear at the top message icon for me to click. thanks

 

[TRXnMe]

The emails bit I can explain :)

Your windows email setup has several options for how it handles emails on the server (your ISP's computer), one of them does not delete the emails it downloads, but leaves them there, so when you get a new email programme youu get all your old emails :)

Finding 'check all' is part of the fun of a new system

 

[Jeltz]

My latest laptop has windows 8 on it (which I quite like) and I need windows for work.

I usually dual boot them from within windows (either mint or ubuntu) but this one has a weird UEFI bios and won't accept the easy way.

I can't really afford to "brick" this so for the moment I'm only using fuduntu on my netbook.

 

[danb]

ive figured out if i right click and mark i get the option all read which is working just got to wait though for the rest to come through. figured out opening old pictures and my brewing log on the windows side and tried adding writing to one and saving and they still save to the old place which i suppose is fine as i can just load from there and still access if ever want to go back to windows.

 

[EskiBrew]

I'm seriously considering this for my net book which has win 8. But I don't have a disc drive. I do have a separate CD/DVD drive. I have a few programs I use such as Corel Draw and family history programs which are running on Windows as well as Office 2003 Do you need to re download these as Linux programs, if available? I do have Openoffice but went back to Office as it wasn't completely compatible or at least I couldn't figure out a solution to what I wanted to do.

One option for running the occasional Microsoft prog is to install VirtualBox in your Linux system then install WinXP as a virtual machine within that. You can then boot Windows from within Linux if you need it. This is how I work and it works well.

Like HB says if want to play games.........:)
Been with ubuntu for ages, which went flowery, so now gone to xubutu same thing but slicker, without the shi.........
S

I agree, I don't like the unity GUI so I also use xubuntu :thumb:

 

[bobsbeer]

Sounds like a plan. Do I need to wipe the HD and then install, or install and then remove windows? I have about 30gig of stuff, music, photos etc I wouldn't want to lose. And that would take a lot of backing up to CD's.

 

[ScottM]

Sounds like a plan. Do I need to wipe the HD and then install, or install and then remove windows? I have about 30gig of stuff, music, photos etc I wouldn't want to lose. And that would take a lot of backing up to CD's.

An external hard drive may be a good option for you? 2.5" HDDs in caddys are reasonably cheap on eBay with a decent amount of storage. I would recommend it regardless of your choice of OS as they are a very handy way of keeping important stuff backed up should the worst happen.

I'm with you on windows 8, god awful OS for me. To get to the most basic of settings feels like you are hacking the OS.

 

[EskiBrew]

Sounds like a plan. Do I need to wipe the HD and then install, or install and then remove windows? I have about 30gig of stuff, music, photos etc I wouldn't want to lose. And that would take a lot of backing up to CD's.

Backup BEFORE you do ANYTHING :shock:
As Scott says, an external hard drive is the best option - 1TB drives are now less than £50. I've seen one recently for just over £30.

 

[bobsbeer]

That does seem the best option. I've been a bit worried about the data anyway, but as with many things never got around to sorting it. But Win 8 is doing my head in and it seems so slow on my machine. So I will have to get one sorted.

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

ZorinOS 6.1 is now available. You can download it here. It is a pretty monsterous download though at 1.4GB and you need to burn it to a DVD once you have it downloaded. You need to be sure to choose the right burn option in your CD/DVD burning software to burn the image rather than the image file (if you burn the downloaded file to DVD it will not boot).

Have fun and let us know if you get stuck :thumb:

Going for it......
Downloaded disc, do I just put it in't laptop and let it work it's magic? :wha:

I'm no IT expert.

BB

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Burned a disc and nowt doing???
put disc in drive, turned machine on and just a black screen with white writing.... :wha: :wha: :wha:

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!
BB

 

[Titus A Duxass]

What does the writing say?

 

[hairybiker]

Usually they boot a menu saying boot from HDD or CD. It maybe that your download was corrupt. Do they have an md5 checksum on the download page, if so use a checker to make sure they are the same.

Never used that so can't comment on how it boots.
Things to check 2 : you did burn the iso as an image not a file to dvd?

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Got this........ [DR-DOS] A:\>

 

[alawlor66430]

The only thing I really know about laptops is that my one is ****, could this thing your speaking about help to speed it up a bit and how much is it ??