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Re: Xy4 - OS options

Paul has done a more thorough job of taking notes than I have -- he is
spot on about installing the Linux bootloader to Linux's partition,
something I have to remind myself, though fortunately I haven't had to
install for a couple of years now.

And since I haven't done a good job of keeping a book, I am only now
recalling why I didn't like sharing partitions, and I am wrong --
permissions work just fine, for instance for shuttling file between my
laptop, which can boot Windows 7, where my Xy files live on as FAT32
partition, and my Linux-only desktop.

I have not run into very many U2 routines that don't run, and all my
batchfiles ran ok, though I did have to change some paths, but I think
that was to get rid of some cruft. It took a little fiddling to get the
Random House dictionary going, though once again I can't recall what
that involved. I had to massage the system clipboard share batchfiles,
and I still have to go through an extra step on my Gnome desktop to
paste Xy-originated text, a minor inconvenience -- even though the text
is in the clipboard, it won't paste into a Thunderbird composition window.

A question, Paul -- are you having any issues with Unity? I'm not in a
hurry to get to 11.04, but I am perfectly content with Gnome, to the
point where if I do move forward I will probably install Gnome.

And to amplify: many view Evolution as something of a bloated pig, since
it's based on Outlook, I think. Thunderbird is leaner and meaner, and
well-maintained.

Definitely worth experimenting for the curious. I want to get rid of
all my Windows partitions, but I probably can't -- for one reason: photo
editing which I do very occasionally. I like the Nikon proprietary image
editing software, and though it runs in XP under Virtual Box, it's very
slow. Nikon Capture NX not worth the trouble of adding XP to this box,
particularly since it's much more problematical [hmmm, the first time I
have ever used that word] to install Windows over Linux than the other
way -- but if I were doing it all over again, I probably would stick a
smallish XP partition on. Having said that, 1) I'm consistently
startled by how well Virtual Box handles XP programs, and 2) if I were
better with Photoshop, I'd probably have switched over to Gimp, which is
essentially a Photoshop clone, for image editing.


-r

On 06/08/2011 09:34 PM, Paul Lagasse wrote:
Patricia, I pretty much agree with Rafe. I think any experienced
computer user can use an installed Linux system with a graphical
desktop pretty much from the get-go. The latest Ubuntu desktop, Unity,
is a little trickier, but installing the last long-term support
version (LTS) of Ubuntu or installing one of its derivatives that
doesn't use the Unity desktop (Lubuntu, Mint, or PinguyOS) avoids
that. And desktop aside, if you want to try out Ubuntu or one of its
derivatives, I'd suggest trying the LTS-based version (Ubuntu 10.04 or
Mint 9) and installing that one. The LTS releases tend to have the
fewest issues, are supported the longest, and consolidate much of the
development that has gone on in the prior releases.


More specifically, re what Rafe wrote:
 I will speak of Ubuntu since that's the distro I have the most
experience with -- Paul is using Linux Mint, which is also
Debian-based, and has a great deal to recommend it as well -- but
Ubuntu probably has the broadest user base these days, and, I think
Paul would agree, probably the easiest to find support for online.

I use Ubuntu releases 10.04, 10.10, and 11.04 and Mint releases 10 and
11 as well as Mint Debian pretty much interchangeably. I don't
recommend installing Ubuntu 11.04 or Mint 11, nor (for a beginner)
Mint Debian. One difference between Mint and Ubuntu that might be of
interest is that Thunderbird is Mint's default email program; Ubuntu
uses, at present, Evolution, though Thunderbird can be easily
installed. Most Mint and Ubuntu support is interchangeable, so if you
have a Mint question, and can't find help at Mint sites, looking at
the Ubuntu forums may be helpful. There's certainly much more Ubuntu
info. If you try out one Debian-based system, such as Ubuntu, and move
to another, much of the what you've learned transfers very readily.

1) Consider using an old machine you don't use much anymore, or
getting a little netbook, and installing Linux onto that.
(Apparently Asus is about to start selling netbooks with Ubuntu
pre-installed.) After you play around with it for a few months,
you'll have an idea how to optimally get it running on your main
machine.  It's pretty exciting to be able to download an ISO image
in an hour or so, burn it to a DVD, and start using it.

Alternatively, before installing at all, consider simply booting the
CD. Play around with it and see if you have questions or issues. If
you have a notebook, this is a good way to find out if it will
recognize your wifi card. If you want to try one of the distributions
further, consider creating or acquiring a thumbdrive installation.
It's pretty easy to create these, and it's also relatively cheap to
buy a preinstalled thumbdrive. This approach avoids installing the
distro and partitioning your hard drive, while also letting you give
the distro a fuller test-drive than you can with a CD.

If you can't easily download and burn and ISO, I'd be happy to send
you disk or two.

2) Linux distros' installation routines are pretty sophisticated now,
-- they are cagey and in my experience if you just click on "Proceed"
things will work -- but if you're installing over Windows, you
certainly should first back everything up, and then research how
things will work. Ubuntu's partition manager will offer a
suggestion, which in most cases is sound, but these are the very
circumstances that demand you know how Linux is seeing the partitions
on your disk.

The one thing I would recommend you do, as a first time installer, is
to install the Linux bootloader to the partition you install Linux on,
rather than the master boot record. (Installing to the MBR is the
default setup.) If you don't already have a bootloader that will allow
you to select between Windows and Linux, consider installing EasyBCD
afterward in Windows so that you can access Linux. I think that doing
this allows you to remove Linux and its bootloader from your system
more easily if disenchantment or worse sets in.

3) If you're going dual-boot Windows and share a partition, there are
considerations. Study up on these, online. It is possible to
configure a partition for Windows-based Xywrite and Linux-based
XyWrite to share, however it's my opinion that if most of your usage
ends up to be Linux, you'd probably end up wanting to keep those
files separate, just because the permissions issues on both OSes can
get complicated.

I think that if you format a shared data partition as fat32 you should
be OK. Linux will let you create quite large fat32 partitions during
installation; you just can't use a fat32 partition for your system
files. I don't know, because I have no experience with it, if there
are issues with running DOS executables located on a fat32 partition.

4) Don't forget to find keystop.sys and download it and install it
into your config.sys -- this will prevent ctrl-c from shutting down
your DOS session.

"Shutting down" is Rafe's polite term for closing without warning and
with loss of unsaved data. And if your quit key-combo in XyWrite is
alt-f4, you should change the Linux usage for alt-f4 (which is quit in
Linux as well). Unless you issue that combo in a fullscreen session,
the Linux version will take precedence over the XyWrite version, and
if you have Xy4's alt-f4 set to run U2's finito, it will not be run
and your Xy4 session will close immediately, a la ctrl-c. Linux has no
awareness of the fact that there are unsaved files in a Xy4/Dosemu
session.

Dosemu isn't DOS; there are some little quirks, and not all of U2 can
be run. Not all your existing batch files may run. If you do decide to
try things out, I have lots of notes, which I'd be happy to clean up,
make clearer, and share with you.


Paul Lagasse