Considering switching to Linux....

1066familyman · Jan 28, 2017

KVLT said:
Yes they seem to be. The only graphics issues I'm getting involve screen tearing. As I say I've tried 4 distros and they all suffer from a bit of tearing when I move tiled windows about (which is fine - I can live with that). But I have found there to be issues with tearing when watching video files on every distro bar Lubuntu. I did find that turning compositing off seemed to fix it on the others though (it appears Lubuntu has no compositing option available, which I presume is the way of things with LXDE).

I've been messing with this full Lubuntu install for the last hour and (hopefully) all is looking good. The laptop I'm using came shipped with Vista (1.5GHz 1GB) which it really struggled to run (would take about a minute to open a YouTube video, and that's after the 8-10 minute boot-up time), but Lubuntu seems to be running just fine on it.

I'm finding this venture into the world of Linux way more straight forward than I ever would have thought. I wish I'd dared to look into it sooner.

Same.

I could have done with discovering Linux a few years ago when my laptop starting getting slower and slower.

I can't believe the difference to be honest. Almost seems too good to be true.

ozzygull · Jan 29, 2017

Wardy's twin said:
Did you work for HP by any chance ?

No, just the company I worked ran all their software on VMS and Tru64 as well as some HPUX sysyems. My job was to build and and configure the hardware and install the OS for the developers. Alpha server 800's, DS40 with HSZ80's and various other variations. It was telecommunications software, the company "Sema group" invented the software to send text (SMS) messages, I know the chap who sent the first ever SMS. It came up as a question in "The Chase" the other day.

KVLT · Jan 29, 2017

Okay. Next question. :lolol:

When you use Synaptic Packet Manager does it solely get its results from the distributions own repository or does it cast its net further?

I ask as I've installed Linux Lite on my second laptop and using its 'Lite Software' utility it only provides a limited list of recommended programs.

Synaptic yields many more results but has left me wondering if the applications it's finding are guaranteed safe and verified for the distro.

Cheers.

Deleted member 22389 · Jan 29, 2017

1066familyman said:
Same.

I could have done with discovering Linux a few years ago when my laptop starting getting slower and slower.

I can't believe the difference to be honest. Almost seems too good to be true.

I think you understand Linux doesn't come bundled with loads of manufacturers bloatware and you don't have to install spyware removers or other stuff which wrecks your machine before you even start it. You will enjoy Linux, I'm sure you will start distribution hopping soon enough.

1066familyman · Jan 29, 2017

bashlsdir said:
I think you understand Linux doesn't come bundled with loads of manufacturers bloatware and you don't have to install spyware removers or other stuff which wrecks your machine before you even start it. You will enjoy Linux, I'm sure you will start distribution hopping soon enough.

About 6 seconds for my laptop to shut down now on Linux. At it's worst, on Vista that process could take over a minute.

Another Berkshire Seagull · Jan 29, 2017

1066familyman said:
About 6 seconds for my laptop to shut down now on Linux. At it's worst, on Vista that process could take over a minute.

Have you tried a Windows version that isn't ~10years old? Might be a better comparison.

1066familyman · Jan 29, 2017

Another Berkshire Seagull said:
Have you tried a Windows version that isn't ~10years old? Might be a better comparison.

Fair point :lolol:

We do have a nearly new Windows 10 machine in the house though and that's no quicker than my 10 year old with Linux.

Edit: With nothing better to do, just done a quick test. 17 seconds for the windows 10 machine to shut down. It does boot up really really quick though to be fair, certainly a lot quicker than my 10 year old with Linux. ( I realise these figures are all relative and probably mean very little in isolation).

beorhthelm · Jan 29, 2017

bashlsdir said:
I think you understand Linux doesn't come bundled with loads of manufacturers bloatware and you don't have to install spyware removers or other stuff which wrecks your machine before you even start it. You will enjoy Linux, I'm sure you will start distribution hopping soon enough.

on the other hand a standard Linux distro will include a stack of unused services and daemons that load everytime. and drivers that dont work properly with the hardware even though "supported". and inconsistant path usage between applications, so you loose track where stuff is unless working on it alot. it aint a free ride on Linux.

KVLT · Jan 30, 2017

KVLT said:
Okay. Next question.

When you use Synaptic Packet Manager does it solely get its results from the distributions own repository or does it cast its net further?

I ask as I've installed Linux Lite on my second laptop and using its 'Lite Software' utility it only provides a limited list of recommended programs.

Synaptic yields many more results but has left me wondering if the applications it's finding are guaranteed safe and verified for the distro.

Cheers.

Sorry I'm quoting myself here as my (probably stupid) question seems to have passed by without notice. If anyone can answer it would be appreciated. Thanks. :thumbsup:

boik · Jan 30, 2017

KVLT said:
Sorry I'm quoting myself here as my (probably stupid) question seems to have passed by without notice. If anyone can answer it would be appreciated. Thanks.

Sorry for the delay. There should be a menu option called "Software Sources" which will define where apt looks for software. From a terminal, if you run "sudo apt-get update" you will see where it is looking for new versions of software.

KVLT · Jan 30, 2017

boik said:
Sorry for the delay. There should be a menu option called "Software Sources" which will define where apt looks for software. From a terminal, if you run "sudo apt-get update" you will see where it is looking for new versions of software.

Cheers for the reply boik.

I see there is an option on Synaptic which is labelled 'Repositories' which has lots of options regarding download location and servers. Some servers are checked by default - so is it the case that they are safe and verified, or are all of them safe including those that are unchecked? Sorry again I'm probably making a right tw@t of myself here.

As far as I understand it (and I may well be wrong) the developers of a distro sign off certain software as safe and working for their distro. This is surely the case for the limited list of apps available in the Lite Software Utility. So my question still stands - Is this also the case for anything I download via Synaptic?

I am aware you can get .deb files from external sources. My friend who also wants to switch to Linux likes Opera web browser, but having looked via Synaptic it doesn't seem to be available there so it looks like a case of the .deb file from the Opera website. Now I understand if I were to install it that it should work but there 'could' be issues, and it also begs the question of how I would go about updating it? Would it have to be treated separately to my regular system update?

Sorry, but this is the only area where I feel a need for clarification. Cheers. :thumbsup:

Dick Head · Jan 30, 2017

KVLT said:
Cheers for the reply boik.

I see there is an option on Synaptic which is labelled 'Repositories' which has lots of options regarding download location and servers. Some servers are checked by default - so is it the case that they are safe and verified, or are all of them safe including those that are unchecked? Sorry again I'm probably making a right tw@t of myself here.

As far as I understand it (and I may well be wrong) the developers of a distro sign off certain software as safe and working for their distro. This is surely the case for the limited list of apps available in the Lite Software Utility. So my question still stands - Is this also the case for anything I download via Synaptic?

I am aware you can get .deb files from external sources. My friend who also wants to switch to Linux likes Opera web browser, but having looked via Synaptic it doesn't seem to be available there so it looks like a case of the .deb file from the Opera website. Now I understand if I were to install it that it should work but there 'could' be issues, and it also begs the question of how I would go about updating it? Would it have to be treated separately to my regular system update?

Sorry, but this is the only area where I feel a need for clarification. Cheers.

The Opera .deb is automatically configured for updates but you can add the repo if you really, really want to.

https://deb.opera.com/manual.html

Scoffers · Jan 30, 2017

Interesting topic, I've been considering doing the same for a while and Windows 10 isn't doing it for me. One thing that has held me back in the past is the amount of Steam games I have. I suppose I could simply add a Windows 10 emulator on top of do the who dual boot thing.

KVLT · Jan 30, 2017

Scoffers said:
Interesting topic, I've been considering doing the same for a while and Windows 10 isn't doing it for me. One thing that has held me back in the past is the amount of Steam games I have. I suppose I could simply add a Windows 10 emulator on top of do the who dual boot thing.

Just out of interest I compared my Windows 8.1 memory usage from boot with my Lubuntu installation today.

Windows: 1.7 GB

Lubuntu: 137 MB

:lolol:

Scoffers · Jan 30, 2017

KVLT said:
Just out of interest I compared my Windows 8.1 memory usage from boot with my Lubuntu installation today.

Windows: 1.7 GB

Lubuntu: 137 MB

Haha, marvellous

Deleted member 22389 · Feb 2, 2017

My wife has had her new laptop less than 2 months, and already her Chrome has been hijacked with a weird yahoo redirect on Windows 10. I also installed Windows 7 on my father in laws PC about 6 months ago, dual booting with Linux, yesterday he phoned me and said he got a message whilst using Windows saying his machine has errors. I told him not to click it, as this is probably malware.

This is one of the reasons why I use Linux and why I encourage others too. You spend more time fixing problems on Windows more than anything else. Windows might have all the software, all the games, but when you start getting malware and other rubbish it's game over, your then better off formatting your drive and reinstalling Windows properly, but then comes the issues of how many times you are allowed to activate it. At least with Linux you can install the OS as many times as you like.

Windows feels like such hassle to me these days.

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