Windows 7 or chance Windows 8.1?

[Pegleg]

Do any of the LiveCD or LiveDVD Linux versions work on Macs?

I've never owned a MAC, but AFAIK the stumbling block used to be that MAC hardware had move to EFI instead of the traditional BIOS before Linux was EFI ready. Even now, not all Linux distros will boot on hardware using EFI. But Linux has caught up and you should get the latest Ubuntu or Mint to boot on a MAC. Here's one guide using a USB stick:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-boot-a-linux-live-usb-stick-on-your-mac/

Installing Linux alongside MAC OS is possible: http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutori...mac--mac-53415

[Pegleg]

Thanks for advice, Frances. I have now installed Mint on a laptop. It has a very smart desk top, but will permit me to bungee jump into the depths of the system very easily, hopefully without hitting my head! Preferable to latest version of Ubuntu, imv.

Which flavour of Mint did you install, Oddball? Cinnamon, Mate, KDE or XFCE? I don't use MINT myself, but it is currently top of the rankings at distrowatch,com and for anyone who is interested here are a coupe of favorable reviews:

http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/linux-mint-16-kde-review-with-kde-4113.html

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-mint-petra.html

First job to find out what happened to the wifi driver!

Wifi drivers are a possible weakspot of Linux. It's not untypical to find Wifi doesn't work "out of the box" and you have to configure and use a wired connection before you can get the drivers/firmware you need. The first step is to identify the wireless card/adapter/dongle in use via "lspci -v" or "lsub -v" at the command line.

[Quarky]

Thanks for comments about WiFi, Pegleg.

I have installed the latest version of Mint, Mint 16, which I believe (lap top not to hand at the moment) has Cinnamon 2.0.

Main concern at the moment is that I have lost my Computer expert, who was going to install for me Linux side by side with Windows 7 (on a second laptop). Am I being foolhardy by trying this myself? I understand it may be necessary to wipe the lap top clean, then reinstall Windows 7, and configure it with some free disk space. No doubt there is a Linux forum somewhere that tells me how to do this, but feeling a bit nervous about taking the plunge!

[Frances_iom]

No doubt there is a Linux forum somewhere that tells me how to do this, but feeling a bit nervous about taking the plunge!

I've done it - was very easy - start with Windoze installed (can't easily do other way around as guess what Windoze writes over all drive just to prevent this) - you need to reduce the size of windoze to about 50% (there is a windoze program for this) - then you shut down and then reboot from a CD - this should offer to install into the recently vacated space (you will land up with a harddrive with Win 7, then Linux, plus the win7 recovery partition
the installer for Linux will write a new startup (grub or similar) boot - you can see the windoze option from a linux boot but (of course) not vice versa) there is a free program whose name I forget (the dual boot machine is elswhere - I only went thru this to allow easy use of a scanner from Canon who seem to be in bed with Mickeysoft and refuse to release any info to open source systems) but a google search should find simple instructions (search for dual boot linux win7)

My preferred method is merely to switch harddrives leaving the windoxe drive untouched in case you need sell machine or get it fixed under warranty) - cheapest 500G harddrive less than £40 from Robt Dyas (+ you get a free USB interface + plastic box - merely prize aprt after checking it works, remove hardrive and swop )

[Dave2002]

My preferred method is merely to switch harddrives leaving the windoxe drive untouched in case you need sell machine or get it fixed under warranty) - cheapest 500G harddrive less than £40 from Robt Dyas (+ you get a free USB interface + plastic box - merely prize aprt after checking it works, remove hardrive and swop )

Is this the drive you mean? http://www.robertdyas.co.uk/seagate-...-drive-usb-3-0

Can't the Linux system be installed using the external drive, without cracking open the box? Obviously if anyone is easily able to swap drives in a machine (wasn't the original mentioned a laptop?) then the drive itself can be removed and installed into the computer, but it might not be necessary. Booting from USB would probably be a bit slower, but not orders of magnitude so.

The Robert Dyas/Seagate drive works out a bit more expensive with the postage, though one can always stock up on light bulbs, shoe polish, pans and other cleaning materials at the same time to get free delivery for £50+ of goods, or even just buy 2 of them.

[Pegleg]

That seagate drive is cheaper at Amazon with free delivery. But if you want a bare drive, and your laptop supports SATA II, how about one of these: http://www.ebuyer.com/523950-wd-500g...ive-wd5000bpkx

Your laptop, if recent, should allow you to boot from an external drive, but unless your laptop has USB 3 ports, running Linux from an external USB drive can be a bit slow.

Oddball, the outline for dual booting as been given to you by Frances. But I would never rely solely on a recovery partition, if the hard drive dies it's probably lost. So you should really be making a backup image of the laptop drive on an external or network drive together with the appropriate boot disk. Apps like Acronis True Image guide you through all this. Or use the laptop's own recovery app to create a back-up image on DVD or USB stick to. If you add that as a first step to Frances' outline, then the need for a 2nd drive is less NB. In any case, anyone selling a laptop would be advised to wipe their own data and restore it to factory settings which would remove the dual boot. Granted that would be simpler if you bought a second drive.

I don't think you are being foolhardy by trying a "dual boot" install yourself, as long as you do a bit of preparation and reading beforehand. Only you can say how important the data is in the laptop you intend to use, and if you could afford to re-install Windows 7 from scratch if things went badly wrong. On advantage of dual booting is that you could create a data partition on the hard drive which is common to Linux and Windows, as Linux will now reliably read and write to a NTFS partition.

If you set up "dual boot", use a Windows tool to shrink the Windows partition. You could use Windows 7 in-built disk management, but there a free third-party apps that work well like this one: http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html

Rather than letting a Linux installer setup any new Linux partitions, I always prefer to set up those up first by using a Linux LiveCD that has the graphical tool "gparted". You don't have to do this. Many Linux installers, like Mint, will install in the free space you created by shrinking the Windows partition and automatically setup new Linux partitions and format them for you.

Please check if Windows 7 was installed on a laptop using a traditional BIOS or UEFI legacy/compatabilty mode, rather than UEFI, as the disk formatting is different and needs to be taken into account when planning any dual boot. ( UEFI uses something called GPT for the disk partitioning, where as BIOS uses the old DOS/MBR scheme). The check is simple:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/29504-bios-mode-see-if-windows-boot-uefi-legacy-mode.html

[Quarky]

Many thanks Frances and Pegleg.
I am going to have to do some serious reading before going any further, and probably download a disk management app.

[Pegleg]

Many thanks Frances and Pegleg.
I am going to have to do some serious reading before going any further, and probably download a disk management app.

One other thing I should have mentioned is that assuming your Windows 7 drive has enough free space and you are going to shrink it to make room for Linux, you should defragment your Windows 7 drive first. A good free tool for this is "auslogic dfrag" http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/ ( In fact, you should defrag Windows drives from time to time regardless. It's not necessary in Linux.)

Part way down their web page, on the right you'll find the portable version. This can be used by just double clicking on the downloaded exe file, no installation is required, nothing is added to the Windows registry and there's no chance of inadvertently installing adware or any other unwanted stuff along with the download.

[Dave2002]

Pegleg

You may be right - but I generally use PowerDefragmenter - http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...agmenter.shtml - which manages to operate under circumstances where the Windows versions won't function at all. This should also be free. It does multiple passes, as it's not perfect on each pass, but usually after a triple pass things are in a much better state than they started in.

There's also a swap page defragmenter which can be useful for anyone really paranoid about this kind of thing. The one I use activates during the startup/boot phases.

I can't guarantee that this won't be bundled with unwanted stuff - it may depend where you get if from.

[MrGongGong]

But WHY bother with all of this ?
You can get a refurbished macbook running Snow Leopard for the price of a windows laptop and dual boot it into Linux / OSX without having to mess about with fragmentation etc
very simple indeed (the "Fisher Price for Adults" computer ?)

[Pegleg]

Why bother? That depends on the starting point. In this case Oddball was asking about dual booting on existing hardware running Windows 7. Defragmentation is a minor step. With OSX/Linux dual boot you'll have to be aware of UEFI, and you can end up having to use rEFIt, or rEFInd or an equivalent. If this thread is indicative of the process, it doesn't seem that straightforward: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=14016

[Dave2002]

A couple of other things which Oddball might want to consider before plunging in are:

1. To try out a Live CD or Live DVD first. These run within Windows, and providing there's enough disk space should work reliably enough and give a feel for the systems. They do some nifty things, so that nothing (significant) actually gets changed on the drives. However, these are not so good for lengthy trials, precisely because of the volatile nature. It is possible with some to share files or folders with Windows, and that can be used to give a permanence to files created within the Linux environment. Otherwise any files generated will disappear when the Linux environment is closed down.

If you get copies of Linux magazines it's not usually very long before a LiveCD version of a Distro you might want appears.

2. Try out a Virtual Machine system with a Linux disk image. Again the issue of permanency of generated files is raised, though it is possible to save the current state of each VM and restart on a later occasion. It is possible to try/test out a Linux install by this means.

Once sufficient experience and confidence has been gained, then it's probably time to do the install for real on a suitable drive. Personally I'd be inclined to use a new drive for that purpose, rather than try to partition the original drive, though with a large enough drive multiple boot operation is feasible and can be useful. Others have already discussed this.

Going the VM route should allow versions of different OSs to be used on top of the native OS, and some people find that easier than having to reboot the machine to switch OS. Changing from one OS to another is then simply a matter of switching VM. However, to make that work, a reliable VM system has to be used.

[Dave2002]

But WHY bother with all of this ?
You can get a refurbished macbook running Snow Leopard for the price of a windows laptop and dual boot it into Linux / OSX without having to mess about with fragmentation etc
very simple indeed (the "Fisher Price for Adults" computer ?)

Going this route, why bother with Linux at all? Simply learn how to use the commands which can be accessed using the Terminal CLI, and some of the simple file handling tricks for making commands simpler.

I think actually there is a point in setting up a Linux system such as MINT as it makes an easier to use system, particularly for people who don't already have a Unix or Linux background, but simply want to get things done - such as word processing, email, web browsing. Unless things have changed, compared with versions of Windows it should run several times faster. However, there is less advantage in going to Linux from Mac OS X than from Windows, IMO.

[Pegleg]

Dave2002 makes some good points. The limitation of no persistence using a Linux LiveCD is solved by using a Linux LiveUSB stick with persistence. VirtualBox may not be good enough for VMs in a production environment, but it works perfectly well for typical home use and for the learning scenarios outlined.

[Pegleg]

Oddball, these two vids may be of interest if you're thinking of installing Mint alongside Windows 7:

http://youtu.be/Q42pylkQvPc

http://youtu.be/IPUX-0j5WCo

You'll see the process is much simpler if you let the installer do all the work. There's no prior shrinking of the Windows partition or any defragmentation. The installer does the resizing for you, together with creating a set of default Linux partitions if you choose the appropriate options.