From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot
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So I could start Debian Live.
Changed some settings, like display order, and keyboard layout.
Shutdown, rebooted, and ...
of course, nothing was persisted.
Looked with Dolphin around, and suddenly Linux just hang. Had to switch the machine off with the main switch.
What an experience! Do not know when that happened last time on Windows.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
I bought an 8 GB shtick.
Result: an Access denied message after a minute.But that 8 GB shtick (Intenso ALU LINE, €4.49) could be big enough for installing Debian on it?
Well, it is a slow USB shtick, but fpr trying things out... Why not?
After 3 hours I arrived at:
Um, methinks, that shtick is perhaps truly fucked. Let me get a replacement.
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@BernieTheBernie Are you at least following the proper user guide?
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@TimeBandit Did you read the first line of TFA?
Caution: This needs an overhaul to reflect USB stick layout changes (ESP partition). Could not reproduce it working with a debian-live-11.2-amd64 image.
So, I created the "live" thingy with Rufus. Not the current version of Rufus, because that requires something different than Windows 7. And Rufus allows for automatic creation of the
persistence
partition.
Yes, Rufus formatsext3
instead ofext4
. I do not know if that's the reason.
And next, I cannot follow the instructions in TFA merely by the fact that it requires me to have Linux running already.CATCH-22
.
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As a side note, I sadly had no issues with Rufus 3.21 and the above-mentioned Ubuntu 22.04. I made a file on the desktop, rebooted, and lo it was there after coming up again. Even though the persistence partition was indeed ext3.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Looked with Dolphin around, and suddenly Linux just hang. Had to switch the machine off with the main switch.
What an experience! Do not know when that happened last time on Windows.When's the last time you ran Windows off some dodgy USB stick?
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@Deadfast said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Looked with Dolphin around, and suddenly Linux just hang. Had to switch the machine off with the main switch.
What an experience! Do not know when that happened last time on Windows.When's the last time you ran Windows off some dodgy USB stick?
Calculating....
17 days, 11 hours, 6 minutes, 51 seconds ago.
64 Gb Sandisk Ultra Flair (Equivalent)
Do not recommend.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Do not recommend.
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Next approach. Downloaded Linux Mint Cinnamom. Installed with Rufus 3.22.2009 on 8 GB shtick with 2 GB of persistence.
Starts slowly. Their logo appears for some time, then the screen gets black, but a mouse cursor appears and can be moved around. During the next 5 minutes, nothing else happens.
Rebooted the machine.Now the shtick looks finally fucked.
Windows disk management reports it, "7.47 GB RAW no erros (active, primary partition)". But it cannot be formatted. Rufus cannot deal with it anymore (a timeout error code). Linux Live USBCreator does not find it.
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Here I am back again. From Debian 12, now running on the old spinning rust of my notebook: for reasons of safety, I removed the modern SSD, put the old HDD into the machine, and booted old Windows 7. Then did the shrinking of the system partition; had to activate the
defragmentation service
to complete that task. And then installed Debian from the 128 GB shtick. Seems to have worked.
A little slow, but that may be due to the old rust.
By the way, the installer automagically recognized my Windows 7 system (though told me it was Vista ), added it togrub
, and dual boot automagically works fine.
Now I need to find out some other minor issues. Like preventing Debian from tampering with the system clock. Installing office, audacity, my old sound card, ...
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Wow. Astonished.
My 15 yo Brother HL 2170 printer was automagically detected and worx. Tested with the test page, and next with a pdf downloaded from Nature.
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apt install mono ... E: Unable to locate package mono
And now?
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
apt install mono ... E: Unable to locate package mono
And now?
Did you do an
apt update
?
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@BernieTheBernie apt install mono-complete
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@TimeBandit Thanks, I'll try that some when in the future when I have that spinning rust in the machine again.
@Captain Oh yes, I did that update step. Installation of LibreOffice and Audacity went smooth.Still not knowing how to get my Terratec DMX 6Fire audio card running.
And freshly opened programs are always on the laptop's built in screen, and far too large - I have to move them to the big screen.
And accessing grub to use Windows 7 as the default system.
And ... will see in the future. But looks rather good already.
Perhaps I'll try next steps even on the "production" system with the SSD...
At least, in case a Teams call (for a job interview) would fail, I can replace the disk and join from Debian 12 then.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Like preventing Debian from tampering with the system clock.
Ah, yeah, you need to tell it not to set it to UTC.
https://www.makeuseof.com/fix-dual-booting-linux-wrong-windows-time/
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@BernieTheBernie depending on flavour, you can tell the DE where to open programs.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Still not knowing how to get my Terratec DMX 6Fire audio card running.
Sound like a lot of fun: https://linuxaudio.github.io/libremusicproduction/html/tutorials/setting-and-using-terratec-dmx-6fire-usb-external-soundcard.html
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@Deadfast And with a 7 years old page, some links may have rotten, or some software interface may have been broken, ...
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Wow. Astonished.
My 15 yo Brother HL 2170 printer was automagically detected and worx. Tested with the test page, and next with a pdf downloaded from Nature.
Printing is really one area where Linux outshines Windows by a long shot.
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@boomzilla said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Wow. Astonished.
My 15 yo Brother HL 2170 printer was automagically detected and worx. Tested with the test page, and next with a pdf downloaded from Nature.
Printing is really one area where Linux outshines Windows by a long shot.
And scanning! I’ve plugged three different scanners in and they all worked with no tinkering. Now I have to scan things.
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@boomzilla In the 1990ies, it took me several hours of odd commandline incantations to get my printer working under Linux (SlackWare?). And then only black and white, though it was color printer.
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@BernieTheBernie welcome, timepod traveler!
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@boomzilla I haven't tried setting up a printer under Linux since the 90's, so it may have improved drastically. It would have to be a drastic improvement to be a decent experience, let alone better than Windows PnP. Back then, yeah, what @BernieTheBernie said.
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@HardwareGeek said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Windows PnP
Yeah, the operating system that takes a few seconds to recognize my mouse and keyboard whenever I switch back over. Every. Time.
Like @BernieTheBernie noted, the printer is just usually there in your print dialog, ready to print when you plug it in. Obviously, network printers take a little more work, but you don't have to wait for Windows to look around for drivers or install vendor shovelware.
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@boomzilla said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Obviously, network printers take a little more work
Well, yes, that little step of opening a dialog and add a network printer was still necessary, but it was just a click-thru. No magic rites to be followed meticulously required anymore.
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@BernieTheBernie defense against s compelled me to say that.
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@boomzilla said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@BernieTheBernie defense against s compelled me to say that.
There is no defense against s.
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Heh, contextual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWVte9WGxGE
He does it by using separate disks too, which is obviously difficult on a old laptop, but old-school dual-boot does work I guess.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
but old-school dual-boot does work I guess.
I tried that on the old spinning rust disk, and it worx:
@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:and dual boot automagically works fine
I do not yet dare to do it with the SSD. Remember that all this playing around destroyed that 8 GB shtick such that it cannot be formatted anymore (don't know if it was due to Rufus, Debian, or Linux Mint). That's an experience I really do not want to repeat with the productive system.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Remember that all this playing around destroyed that 8 GB shtick such that it cannot be formatted anymore
Of course it did. USB tumb drives have a really low amount of write cycles, often measured in hundreds. The use case is copying a few files here and there, not using it as volatile memory. The expectation is that you'll lose it or break it a long time before it writes itself to death.
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@Deadfast The shtick was freshly bought before doing those experiments...
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It may be a counterfeit.
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@HardwareGeek said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@boomzilla said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@BernieTheBernie defense against s compelled me to say that.
There is no defense against s.
Wiresnips between the segments do the trick quite nicely.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
I do not yet dare to do it with the SSD.
I've been doing dual-boot for 20 years. The only issue you should be aware of is Windows Update screwing your bootloader. This is easily fixed with a Linux live and a couple of commands.
But, to be honest, it's been a long time since I had this issue
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@TimeBandit said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Windows Update screwing your bootloader
Pah! That does not happen. How should that be possible?
I provide a simple proof: the system is Windows 7.
Windows Update was shown long ago.
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I haven't booted my machine into Linux for a couple of days now, though I should try out some suggestions I got here or an the Debian forum.
Anyways, while reading CodeProject's news page, I stumbled upon a good post regarding Linux for "common" users:
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Meanwhile ... oh no, my laptop is still running Windows 7. Not yet dual boot on the production disk, only on the spinning rust currently not screwed into the computer.
But I have a Debian 12 machine on Azure. And there I can play around a little without endangering my "production" system. Oddly, RDP (xrdp on kde standard) feels a little sluggish. Much slower than the Windows 11 machine. But the latter is hosted in Dublin, while the former in Central Sweden (Stockholm?). Is it too cold there in Sweden for Debian to run smoothly? Or do our swedish friends consume up all the bandwidth available for sweden by shitposting world wide?
Anyway, it works somehow. Google looks funny - "Översätt den här sidan" ("translate this page") - I haven't configured my preferred languages (yet).
Tested a Windows Forms app (.Net 4.8) with mono. "Gtk not found", but works somehow, except e.g. the OK button on a message box missing text. Or other minor graphic glitches. Hm.
Installed lib-gtk-4-dev (or so), but that did not change the issues - perhaps after a reboot, things will look differently. Perhaps.A .Net 4.8 app for starting a virtual machine on Azure fails. But while I get an odd "connection closed" message when running it from my Windows 7 machine, it throws a NullReferenceException in Debian. Google search shows that a few people experienced that error too, but solution is not really clear to me - go back to .Net 4.0 or update to .Net 5 or even 8? Perhaps I will try later on.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Oddly, RDP (xrdp on kde standard) feels a little sluggish. Much slower than the Windows 11 machine.
"A little sluggish". Uhm, actually terrible.
Why tf is it so sluggish?
When I move a window around on the screen, the Windows 11 machine shortly bursts data sending to about 1 Mbps. For a moment only.
But the Debian 12 machine... sends 6 Mbps for several seconds.
Why? But why?
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Oddly, RDP (xrdp on kde standard) feels a little sluggish. Much slower than the Windows 11 machine.
"A little sluggish". Uhm, actually terrible.
Why tf is it so sluggish?
When I move a window around on the screen, the Windows 11 machine shortly bursts data sending to about 1 Mbps. For a moment only.
But the Debian 12 machine... sends 6 Mbps for several seconds.
Why? But why?Weird, I don't remember that, I might have to spin up a machine to see what happens on mine...
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Status: I apparently don't have a recent debian iso. I guess we'll try the net installer ISO....
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@TimeBandit said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@BernieTheBernie I use x2go
Yes! I have got good experience with that as well. Much better than xvnc and xrdp.
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@TimeBandit said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
@BernieTheBernie I use x2go
That seems to require an additional install on my Windows 7 machine
=> NYET.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Tested a Windows Forms app (.Net 4.8) with mono. "Gtk not found", but works somehow, except ...
How are items placed into drop down lists? Theg
ofBingSatellie
does not look nice.
Farther down atSelected Points from ... to
you see that the frist field is empty - it should show1
; and the last field should show6559
.
There is an odd shadow below the rounded buttons, and an odd white line at the bottom line of the text.
Not nice.
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On my Windows 7 machine, I use a Microsoft SQL Server database, and SQL Server Management Studio. Both are rather old versions (the
Developer
version which must be used in production ), but works great. And since I haven't yet written so much code in my apps that I could deal with occasional data issues there, I have several editable views - which I edit in Management Studio.Hence for a migration to Linux I'd need a replacement for both: the sql server engine and the management studio. The Microsoft SQL server proper can somehow be installed on Linux, but not the management studio. I am fed up with mysql.
So: postgres. Installed the server, then phppgadmin. Tried to open the latter - and can't find it.
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
That seems to require an additional install on my Windows 7 machine
=> NYET.Enjoy your suffering then
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@TimeBandit Hit harder!
Please!
Hit harder!
I deserve it!
the kink thread is
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@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
but not the management studio.
Yeah, it sucks balls it's apparently too complicated to port over.
@BernieTheBernie said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
So: postgres. Installed the server, then phppgadmin. Tried to open the latter - and can't find it.
Did you start it? IIRC it's a self-hosting App. I remember needing to launch it via some sort of command-line last I tried. Remind me tonight and I'll look how I did it.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in From Pure Windows 7 to Linux Dual Boot:
Yeah, it sucks balls it's apparently too complicated for such a small company as Microsoft to port over.
FTFY