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Windows 10 to Linux

Started by jave808, November 30, 2019, 02:48:57 PM

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jave808

Hi all,

Has anyone made the change from Windows 10 to Linux?  I'm thinking of doing so and moving to Linux Mint Cinnamon.  I don't really need Windows 10.  All I use on Win 10 now is Firefox, Thunderbird and BOINC. Now and then I might open up a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, but nothing too complicated.

Anything to look out for when moving across?  I plan to install Linux on a new SSD and go from there.  I also have data stored on two mechanical drives, both formatted with NTFS.

Jave.
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

tazzduke

Hi Jave808

Excellent news, its nice to see more a coming across.

Well Mint Cinnamon is a good start into the Linux world, my experiences have been simple and easy, but others may have a different story.

I have 2 x Linux Boxes for crunching, they mainly do SETI and a few other GPU projects when the weather is cooler, but thats all they do.

Others on here may have some more life experience with changing over to a full time linux box.

Cheers



 AA 24 - 53 participant

Dingo

I have two linux machines at home and one WIN10.  I still use the WIN10 machine for everything and just use the Linux machines for BOINC.  I also have two Dedicated servers on the internet that I use for my website , a backup and I also use both for BOINC. 

With the new releases of GUI Linux and the free Open Office sofware I think you can do most things on Linux if not better at least as good.  I like Ubuntu as I have used it for a while after trying Debian and Centos.  It loads easy and is ready to go straight from the start if you download the Desktop version.

Let us know how you get along with your transition.  v:


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Have a look at the BOINC@AUSTRALIA Facebook Page and join and also the Twitter Page.

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jave808

Thanks for your feedback tazzduke and Dingo.

I just have a couple of concerns which you guys may be able to help me with.  I should be able to still access my data on the NTFS fomatted drives?  And what is printer support like on Linux?  I have a Brother laser printer (about 5 years old now) and I print the odd PDF or Word file now and then.  I have never set up a printer before in Linux.

Thanks!
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

jave808

Just to add I set up a test Linux Mint system yesterday and today I've tried a few hacks.

Setting up a printer was easy. In Settings click on "Printer" (or search for it). For my situation, the Brother printer is connected to my wireless network. So after turning the printer on, I found it in the list of devices on the network. I added the recommended driver and voila! I had a functioning printer. I can download a model specific driver from the Brother website so I will do that once I get my Linux OS installed.

As for NTFS, it is possible to read/write to the drives, however they need to be mounted correctly to do so. Some googling found forum threads listing how other people got their drives working under Linux. So that should be good.

My Firefox bookmarks, history etc should all be there when I login to Firefox Sync.  I'm also sure that I can access my Thunderbird emails if I zip up the profiles and transfer across to Linux. Then I need to install BOINC and connect to projects.

That's about it.  I'm not a gamer so I don't care about games on Linux. Solitaire is about the only computer game I play!!!  :jester:

PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

NudgeyNR

There is plenty of opinions out in the wild.

One place i have gone to is Chris Titus's Web site and he also has a Youtube channel Chris Titus Tech. Plenty of videos and playlists on there. He also has Discord and Reddit communities as well.
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jave808

Quote from: NudgeyNR on December 01, 2019, 12:54:49 PM
One place i have gone to is Chris Titus's Web site and he also has a Youtube channel Chris Titus Tech. Plenty of videos and playlists on there. He also has Discord and Reddit communities as well.

Thanks, I will look into that.
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

jave808

Well, today I made the switch.

Installation of Linux Mint is very simple and painless. Note that it's a good idea to be connected to the network so that the installer can download necessary files as it goes along.

Signed in to Firefox Sync to get all my bookmarks etc. The graphics look a little bit different on the bookmarks bar, but other than that, all is good with Firefox.

Now as for Thunderbird, well that was something else. I first copied across my profile (which contains all your account info and emails) from my data drive to the .thunderbird folder in my home directory. Then I edited the profile.ini file to reflect the name of the previous profile. Then I started Thunderbird, and.... nothing. Thunderbird started, but it didn't recognize my profile. After much googling, I found out the you need to remove or uninstall any Windows add-ons BEFORE you move your profile across. Too late now! I then googled some more and discovered that you can delete the .xpi files in the extensions folder, and this should fix your problem. Well, it did. But now I had another problem. Thunderbird would prompt me for my email account passwords, but it wouldn't save them. If you closed Thunderbird, then opened it again, it would prompt you for the passwords again! So what to do? Googling some more I discovered that you need to delete a certain file - pkcs11.txt located in the profile folder. Once this is deleted, start up Thunderbird again and enter your passwords and this time they should be saved. :-)

One other thing is that Linux doesn't remember the window position of Thunderbird when you close/reopen it.  I have two monitors and want Thunderbird to open on the 2nd monitor.  Need to work on this problem.

BOINC installed fine using the Software Manager.  Will need to work out how to get it crunching automatically on startup.  I've done it before in Linux so shouldn't be a big problem.

I've yet to install my printers but I don't foresee any problems.

That's about it!
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

Dingo

Good conversion Jave hope all goes well.  Not sure how to fix the monitor problem other than to create a Launcher on the  monitor you want to run it on.  I think it always stays on the screen it starts on?


Radioactive@home graph
Have a look at the BOINC@AUSTRALIA Facebook Page and join and also the Twitter Page.

Proud Founder and member of BOINC@AUSTRALIA

My Luck Prime 1,056,356 digits.
Have a look at my  Web Cam of Parliament House Ottawa, CANADA

tazzduke

Greetings Jave

Some excellent feedback for others to learn on.

In Linux Mint, there is an option in menu, select preferences then select startup applications.

Regards



 AA 24 - 53 participant

jave808

It's been 4 days now and so far, so good.  :thumbsup:

I managed to overcome the Thunderbird opening problem as I added a "Desklet" to the 2nd monitor. Then added the launcher option and entered the command "thunderbird" to start Thunderbird. It works! (thanks Dingo). Thunderbird now open on 2nd monitor.
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

jave808

Three months (plus a little bit more) on Linux now and so far, so good. No real issues. No crashes etc. I plan to upgrade my PC to a Ryzen 7 2700X CPU so will be interesting to see how I go crunching with that.

Also bought a ZOTAC 3GB mining card off ebay. Supposedly equivalent to a GTX1060. Should have some fun configuring that card to run tasks.
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

Dingo

Good on you sticking with Linux.  I like it and it is free but the command line and working things out can take a long time sometimes.  Great that google will always find someone that had the same problem if you search.


Radioactive@home graph
Have a look at the BOINC@AUSTRALIA Facebook Page and join and also the Twitter Page.

Proud Founder and member of BOINC@AUSTRALIA

My Luck Prime 1,056,356 digits.
Have a look at my  Web Cam of Parliament House Ottawa, CANADA

jave808

It's been just over a year now that I decided to run Linux as my main PC. And I must say, it's been pretty trouble free, apart from one lockup which I'm not sure how it happened.

Software wise I just use Firefox, Thunderbird and BOINC. Anything like Excel or Word files can be handled with LibreOffice. You can even game on Linux - I have Steam and DiRT 2.0 installed and very playable.

So, it you're sick of Windows and don't really need Windows only software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, I can recommend Linux. Many flavours out there for you to try.
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit

jave808

Now time has passed about 1.5 years after I made the switch from Windows 10 to Linux.

I heartily recommend switching if you don't play games. All I do is crunch, emails and web stuff. All three can easily be handled by Linux.

Currently on Linux Mint 20.1 with the Cinnamon desktop.

However, I believe there are a handful of projects that have no Linux binaries - Windows only. Keep this in mind.
PC1: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @3.4GHz, 128GB DDR4, RTX3070, RTX3060, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit
PC2: Lenovo M700 SFF, Intel i5-6400 @2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, Intel graphics, Linux Mint 21.2 64-bit