Linux Discussion Thread

[Desmond]

arch is hrd

It's not hard, it just has a different definition of "simple"

I wanna try Linux.

How much hardware resource is required (RAM, HDD etc) ?

Can I dual boot on my existing Windows 10 installation ?

Most distros these days can run on modern hardware. Hell, you can even give your old hardware a new lease of life by installing Linux on them.

I'd always suggest dual booting Linux (I do this too) if you are new so that you can learn the ropes and if you are not certain how to do something, you can boot back into Windows. Though you can always ask here if you are not familiar with how something is done on Linux vs Windows.

 

[Desmond]

Anyone trying this ?

*forty.gnome.org/

I am on team KDE for now, but I need to see how Gnome is doing. I personally don't like their new UI design since Gnome 3 where all menus are mobile like hamburger menus.

 

[TheSloth]

How is the driver support in Manjaro? We get all the general purpose drivers ? Any issue in finding drivers or issue after installation like crash? Basic example would be to install Nvidia drivers for display.

 

[Æsoteric Positron]

How is the driver support in Manjaro? We get all the general purpose drivers ? Any issue in finding drivers or issue after installation like crash? Basic example would be to install Nvidia drivers for display.

I heard its got one of the best driver support. You can even install/choose the required display driver through GUI. I personally never had any problems on manjaro on the driver department.

 

[Zangetsu]

any good tutorial to install Linux ?

I already have Windows 10 installed on GPT and would like to dual boot with Linux.
Will install Zorin OS first. Is 20 GB partition good enough ?

also what is root & home partition ? is it the combined partition ?

 

[Vyom]

any good tutorial to install Linux ?

I already have Windows 10 installed on GPT and would like to dual boot with Linux.
Will install Zorin OS first. Is 20 GB partition good enough ?

also what is root & home partition ? is it the combined partition ?

There are tons of guides available for dual booting. But I would say start with booting from a live USB stick of Zorin to get a feel of how OS works.

Oversimplification: In Linux there's just one partition which starts with root (/). Every other path is a sub folder inside it.
So:
C:\Users = /home
C:\Users\zengestsu = /home/zengestsu
C:\Program Files = /opt
C:\Temp = /tmp
Source: What is the Linux equivalent to Windows' Program Files?

I had wrote some guides here for Ubuntu: The Ubuntu Guide | Vineet Kumar
Won't say it's perfect guide, but a good place to start from someone who migrated from Windows.

 

[RumbaMon19]

any good tutorial to install Linux ?

As you are installing zorin, the installation is pretty simple. the installer will guide you through. Only area where you will face difficulty is partition management. There is no specific guide for it, as it varies system to system.

For Basic setup follow this one Zorin OS: Install Zorin OS

After that when you reach this place

*geek.digit.in/community/attachments/1617683230117-png.20133/?hash=4e43387bb4db90709270a57b5554e788

Click on something else. It will take you to this place

*geek.digit.in/community/attachments/1617683272025-png.20134/?hash=4e43387bb4db90709270a57b5554e788

Here you need to select two partitions, one for bootloader and other as / directory where all your Home, Usr , etc, var folders will be created I prefer making seperate partiton for bootloader as it comes handy in case things go messy.

Before booting up, give atleast 33GB(32 for linux, 1gb for bootloader) storage for Linux, and you can keep the bootloader partiton at 1GB.

After that once you enter that screen,
1) click on the unused space option and then click the plus(+) button below. It will open a small box. In the storage enter 32768 MB, (this will make a 32 Gig partiton) Set filesystem to ext4 and mount point to "/"
2) Now after saving the previous partiton you will be left with 1gb of unused space (as we allocated 33gb above) to use it, click on that unused space, then click on + button again. this time in filesystem select "EFI boot partition" option and save it.
3) after that, click on the menu button below which says "Device for bootloader installation" and select /dev/sdX*, where x will be the partion no. of EFI partion. it will be indicated under the device list in above table.
4) Thats it. just click install.

Now i have given 1 GB to bootloader because zorin has a restriction that minimum 1GB should e given to bootloader.

*Here the sdX may not be same on your system. If it has SATA Drive, then it will be sdX, if you are using nvme drive it will be nvmeuX and if it is emmc sorage then it will be mmcblkX where x denotes the partion.

also ask if you feel in doubt.

Edit:- Zorin is based on ubuntu, so installation steps are simillar to ubunu. it uses same apt package manager also.

 

[Desmond]

any good tutorial to install Linux ?

Different distros have different methods to install them, so you should refer to specific documentation for each distro. Though I can give general steps to install.

Will install Zorin OS first. Is 20 GB partition good enough ?

I think it should be enough. Though I'd suggest checking Zorin's system requirements as well.

also what is root & home partition ? is it the combined partition ?

The root partition is the main partition where your system will be installed (Windows equivalent would be the C: drive). The home partition is a partition that will have your user files (Windows equivalent is the C:\Users directory, but as a separate partition).

That being said, it's not mandatory to have a separate home partition, you can have home as a simple directory in your root partition. The only disadvantage is that if you want to reinstall your OS or move to another distro, you will have to backup your user files from the home directory.

I'd suggest practice installing on a VM before installing on your system for real.

 

[Zangetsu]

Thanks for help.
So, finally I succeeded in installing Linux. (installed ElementaryOS)
made 20GB root & 50GB home partition (ext4). But I have skipped swap partition (hope that it doesn't create any problem)

After install some update happened in Linux then booted back to Windows 10 from GRUB
In windows I can't see the Linux partitions (looks like windows can't read it)

Now I will install Zorin next.

Got a hang of it now.


Q: Should I create a new \home for Zorin or I can reuse the \home partition created in ElementaryOS installation ?
root folder will be different as obvious

PS: I bought the 500GB NVME SSD for Linux experiments only

 

[Desmond]

But I have skipped swap partition

How much RAM do you have? If you have 8+ GB RAM you don't really need a swap partition (assuming your daily use case does not exceed that amount).

In windows I can't see the Linux partitions (looks like windows can't read it)

Windows cannot read most linux file systems (ext4, btrfs, etc) though technically you can read them if you have the correct file system drivers though I don't know about any such driver. However, you can view the partition (not access the files) in Disk Management (right click Computer > Manage > Disk management) however it will not have a drive letter.

Should I create a new \home for Zorin or I can reuse the \home partition created in ElementaryOS installation ?

You can reuse the home partition. Note that your home partition contains configuration files which could be distro specific. Though this won't harm your OS, the UI and look and feel might not be the same as the current OS. Again, this is not a huge issue.

Since your install is new, I think you don't have any important files in your home partition. So when intalling Zorin, I'd recommend formatting your home partition, just so you start with a clean slate.

root folder will be different as obvious

Do you want to multi boot Windows, elementary and Zorin together? I think it would be better if you use either elementary or zorin.

 

[Zangetsu]

I have 20Gigs of RAM.

I want to access the windows folders such as the movies drive (NTFS) in Linux. So that I can play the movies in Linux.

I will install 4~5 Linux distros together will try them in multiboot for some days then will switch to one primary daily driver.

 

[RumbaMon19]

I want to access the windows folders such as the movies drive (NTFS) in Linux. So that I can play the movies in Linux.

Two Ways:-
1) you can make a small NTFS partition for file sharing or you can use usb.
2) Use Linux Reader by disk internals. It is not freemium, but the trial version works good for me, it does not have a time limit, it has a file size limit.

I will install 4~5 Linux distros together will try them in multiboot for some days then will switch to one primary daily driver.

Instead i suggest you use Live USB and check it that way or use VM, installing 4-5 distros May mess up ur HDD partitons.

 

[RumbaMon19]

Also here are some useful tools

CPUfreq Indicator :- A must for laptop user, it helps in manually selecting the governor for CPU. Use it if one faces issues like overheating etc.

Heres how to install

$ sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq

PulseEffects: This one is agood equaliser with GUI for linux. it also supports a Dolby atmos effect which works great with headphone users.

*github.com/wwmm/pulseeffects

and then install these presets

*github.com/JackHack96/PulseEffects-Presets

 

[Zangetsu]

Cool. Need some suggestions of Awesome apps to Install.
I found one excellent RSS reader to start with

*flathub.org/apps/details/me.hyliu.fluentreader

 

[Desmond]

I will install 4~5 Linux distros together will try them in multiboot for some days then will switch to one primary daily driver.

Removing those from the bootloader will be a headache. You will have to delete the corresponding .efi files from the /boot directory.

 

[Zangetsu]

Hmm. Ya, but I'm excited

Do I have to worry about reducing SSD Writes in Linux ?

 

[Desmond]

Hmm. Ya, but I'm excited

Do I have to worry about reducing SSD Writes in Linux ?

I think that applies regardless of OS. Though you could move directories that are expected to have large amounts of writes to partitions on different drives.

Good candidates for this are /home and /var. /home will have your user files (documents, music, etc.) and as such would be one of your most active directories. /var has logs for various applications and other supporting files and as such will also be good to have in a separate non-SSD partition.

 

[Zangetsu]

While installing DeepinOS I added root & home partition but the installer asked to select EFI partition also to proceed further.
Can I select the existing EFI partition (100MB) ? or create a new EFI partition for Deepin ?

Out of curiosity I ventured inside the EFI partition using DOS commands and here is what I found.
3 Directories inside EFI folder
- Microsoft
- Boot
- ubuntu

Also in BIOS boot option I get 2 boot managers to select
- Windows Boot Manager
- Ubuntu

So, I give 1st preference to Ubuntu boot manager (that is why I get the GRUB loader) and if I select the windows boot manager then I won't get the GRUB.

 

[sling-shot]

Show that EFI partition to Deepin. It will put its own directory there.

 

[khalil1210]

Cool. Need some suggestions of Awesome apps to Install.
I found one excellent RSS reader to start with

*flathub.org/apps/details/me.hyliu.fluentreader

Install oh my zsh. it is cool upgrade to your shell

*ohmyz.sh/