Laptop: Fujitsu UH-X, Intel Core i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz, 8G ram

[sneexe]

Hello World!

I'm intending to try out my first Linux distro via dual-boot (Win 10) from a USB or SDcard on a Fujitsu UH-X, Intel Core i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz, 8G ram machine, 64-bit.

• I've seen people discussing booting from a USB stick, but nobody has mentioned SDcard, is this because they're essentially identical, or because nobody uses SDcards for that purpose for some technical reason...?
• Is it possible to create a USB/SD boot drive that also works as a Virtual Machine, or is VM something that only works from an internal HD?
• 32G - 64G should be enough?

My key uses are typically: wordprocessing, powerpoint presentations, browser search, email, videoconferencing.

I don't have a 2nd computer and want to be sure I don't interrupt work / lose projects while trying out different Linux distros.

The names Mint, Fedora and Ubuntu come up the most for queries into easy beginner intro systems, but hardly any info comes up for the actual differences between them to help one decide. And the only driver support I seem able to find on Fujitsu websites (archived/discontinued) seems to be for Red Hat Enterprise....

• EDIT: Btw, anyone with experience of first-time installing to laptops; Is it true that Laptops in general, and Fujitsu's in particular, don't play well with Linux due to need for proprietary drivers?

 

[Brickwizard]

I've seen people discussing booting from a USB stick, but nobody has mentioned SDcard, is this because they're essentially identical, or because nobody uses SDcards for that purpose for some technical reason...?

I have done it myself in the past, it depends on if SD is in the boot options of your machine.

Is it possible to create a USB/SD boot drive that also works as a Virtual Machine, or is VM something that only works from an internal HD?

you are talking of a usb pen-drive or sd card with persistence [this will take the place of the onboard drive and have the ability to store any changes to the system and any work you do] 64 would be minimum for this use

r the actual differences between them to help one decide

this is Linux, there are around 500 desks top Linux distributions, all will do the same job, most built on a base of RHEL [red hat] SUSE, Arch, or the most popular Debian, the differences are the DE [desktop environment] of which there are around 8 common ones, the packages used to build the individual distribution, and if you want stability of a fixed term distribution , or the uncertainty of a rolling distribution for the latest drivers,
Another thing to consider is the age of your machine, as not many component manufacturers provide Linux drivers, it can take up to 9 months [possibly longer] for the boys ang girls who back engineer the drivers to make test and release them.
In short NO one distribution is better than any other [unless its a specialist build, marine Linux, auto Linux & etc] what is best for me or any other member, may not be best for you, ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE

 

[Condobloke]

G'day Sneexe, Welcome to Linux.org

I don't have a 2nd computer and want to be sure I don't interrupt work / lose projects while trying out different Linux distros.

There....is probably your biggest, most important challenge.

Choosing a distro can end up being simplicity itself....load a few to a ventoy usb stick and boot them one by one.....they will load in ram (not on the drive)....and the one that has instant appeal will be the one)

In what manner do you back up your windows 10 ?....you do have a back up in place..?

 

[sneexe]

Hi Brickwizard, thank you very much for the pointers on these two, much appreciated, I'll look for resources with these keywords and be sure to start with a 64G or 128G if I can get one.

I have done it myself in the past, it depends on if SD is in the boot options of your machine.

you are talking of a usb pen-drive or sd card with persistence [this will take the place of the onboard drive and have the ability to store any changes to the system and any work you do] 64 would be minimum for this use

this is Linux, there are around 500 desks top Linux distributions, all will do the same job, most built on a base of RHEL [red hat] SUSE, Arch, or the most popular Debian, the differences are the DE [desktop environment] of which there are around 8 common ones, the packages used to build the individual distribution, and if you want stability of a fixed term distribution , or the uncertainty of a rolling distribution for the latest drivers,
Another thing to consider is the age of your machine, as not many component manufacturers provide Linux drivers, it can take up to 9 months [possibly longer] for the boys ang girls who back engineer the drivers to make test and release them.

Thanks for the parameters to take into account. My machine is circa 2022 (best guess)... if the original manufacturer does not deal in Linux drivers, where does one go to find (safe?) downloads?

In short NO one distribution is better than any other [unless its a specialist build, marine Linux, auto Linux & etc] what is best for me or any other member, may not be best for you, ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE

Yup thanks! I've been hearing that advice - so I didn't ask anyone to tell me what to pick. More trying to figure out how to get something running without bricking my machine ... I really can't afford that!

 

[sneexe]

G'day Sneexe, Welcome to Linux.org


There....is probably your biggest, most important challenge.

Choosing a distro can end up being simplicity itself....load a few to a ventoy usb stick and boot them one by one.....they will load in ram (not on the drive)....and the one that has instant appeal will be the one)

In what manner do you back up your windows 10 ?....you do have a back up in place..?

G'day Condobloke! Thanks!

I haven't got a backup in place for the OS, just for working files. Valuable reminder that I must look into that before embarking on any testing... And thank you very much for the lead on ventoy... I've now found their page

 

[KGIII]

You should also make sure you have the media to reinstall Windows and you should at least do some verification of that media.

 

[Brickwizard]

Thanks for the parameters to take into account. My machine is circa 2022 (best guess)... if the original manufacturer does not deal in Linux drivers, where does one go to find (safe?) downloads?

Your machine would probably been assembled between October 20 and December 21
Linux {the core of GNU Linux Distributions] carry a vast array of hardware drivers, and distributions carry more in their repositories just remember when installing if asked tick yes to install non-free drivers [there is no cost, it is the Linux term for non FOSS drivers], if our experienced members give you a link to a special driver, you can expect it to be 100% safe ,
Never ever download from a 3rd party link so first you use the distribution repositories for your drivers and apps, second would be trusted sites [direct from the manufacturer or a recognised source such as GitHub..If in doubt ASK

 

[sneexe]

You should also make sure you have the media to reinstall Windows and you should at least do some verification of that media.

Thank you for the tip... sorry I need to ask, what does verification of the media entail?
Much appreciated in advance

 

[sneexe]

Your machine would probably been assembled between October 20 and December 21
Linux {the core of GNU Linux Distributions] carry a vast array of hardware drivers, and distributions carry more in their repositories just remember when installing if asked tick yes to install non-free drivers [there is no cost, it is the Linux term for non FOSS drivers], if our experienced members give you a link to a special driver, you can expect it to be 100% safe ,
Never ever download from a 3rd party link so first you use the distribution repositories for your drivers and apps, second would be trusted sites [direct from the manufacturer or a recognised source such as GitHub..If in doubt ASK

Thank you

 

[Brickwizard]

. More trying to figure out how to get something running without bricking my machine ... I really can't afford that!

sorry missed that bit

https://www.linux.org/threads/how-do-i-try-linux.45037/

 

[MikeWalsh]

Hallo, @sneexe. And welcome to the friendliest Linux forum online!

Yup, m'colleague @Brickwizard is right. USB booting is mostly mentioned because it's a universal option across ALL machines nowadays. SD cards, on the other hand, are totally dependent on whether the BIOS/UEFI supports that type of media as one it will boot from.

Example; my desktop rig - an HP Pavilion from 2019 - happily boots from an SD card. My other machine - an older Dell Latitude laptop - will NOT. It's quite content to read data from it, but as for booting? Forget it.

(Dells have always been Linux-friendly.....which is why I prefer them.)

Sometimes it's not only whether the machine supports it or not. Sometimes the restriction lies within the firmware of the card reader slot itself. Where SD card booting direct from a built-in slot is concerned, it's always something of a "suck-it-and-see" process of elimination. However, it will almost ALWAYS boot if you put the card in a USB card reader....

I haven't got a backup in place for the OS, just for working files.

TBH, you're thinking along the right lines. An OS can always be re-installed; your data is the product of your own time & effort. Once that's gone, it's gone....

An OS backup will, however, ease the pain of re-installation enormously. You know yourself what a PITA it is to re-install Windows. You WILL find that backups/restorations are one thing that's a lot simpler on this side of the fence.....and Linux is much easier to install/re-install generally, since there's no need to chase around manufacturer websites obtaining drivers. 99% of what you will ever need is contained within the kernel; at this point in time, the Linux kernel is probably better than 95% nothing BUT drivers.

It's a good system. And it works.....very, very well.


Mike.

 

[KGIII]

Thank you for the tip... sorry I need to ask, what does verification of the media entail?
Much appreciated in advance

I don't think MSFT shares checksum values. If they do, use that. Otherwise, at least make sure that you can boot to the media and that it passes the sniff test - that is that it looks like you can reinstall from it. You don't have to go through the whole thing to ensure that it works, though that'd be best practice. Just make sure the media boots and looks like it'll do what you need it to do.

Also, I too only really backup my personal files. The OS is of no importance to me. If it breaks, I can fix it. If I can't fix it, I can do a clean install and import my data. This means I'll even have the same settings.

 

[sneexe]

Yup, m'colleague @Brickwizard is right. USB booting is mostly mentioned because it's a universal option across ALL machines nowadays. SD cards, on the other hand, are totally dependent on whether the BIOS/UEFI supports that type of media as one it will boot from.

Hi Mike, thank you very much, that additional detail info about SD's is very helpful! It's changed my mind about trying to SD option at all now.

TBH, you're thinking along the right lines. An OS can always be re-installed; your data is the product of your own time & effort. Once that's gone, it's gone....

An OS backup will, however, ease the pain of re-installation enormously. You know yourself what a PITA it is to re-install Windows. You WILL find that backups/restorations are one thing that's a lot simpler on this side of the fence.....and Linux is much easier to install/re-install generally, since there's no need to chase around manufacturer websites obtaining drivers. 99% of what you will ever need is contained within the kernel; at this point in time, the Linux kernel is probably better than 95% nothing BUT drivers.

It's a good system. And it works.....very, very well.

I'm basically tired of having to re-learn a new desktop UI everytime supporting an old OS becomes unviable for the commercial company...

Not having a separate unit to play around with though, am I correct in assuming that booting from and using a USB as a virtual machine will mean that the main terminal with its existing OS is untouched and wont become corrupted while I'm trying out the USB virtual Linux? (ie: improbably low risk of downtime and data loss evemts...)

 

[Condobloke]

Not having a separate unit to play around with though, am I correct in assuming that booting from and using a USB as a virtual machine will mean that the main terminal with its existing OS is untouched and wont become corrupted while I'm trying out the USB virtual Linux? (ie: improbably low risk of downtime and data loss evemts...)

yes the assumption you have made is correct.....with a few amendments

1....When you boot from a usb stick, the os on the usb stick will be loaded into ram.....It will run in what is called LIVE mode. It will run slightly slower than if it was full installed on the drive. It will not enjoy persistence......in other words, as soon as you take that usb stick out.....any changes you made to the os will be lost. Forever.

2... It is possible to set that usb stick up with persistence so that changes you make to the OS are preserved.
A usb stick of at least 60GB (approx is needed. @Brickwizard can tell you more about that

3.you would be able install a Virtiual machine on your pc. A portion of the available ram is used to run it, and you also allow it to use a portion of the main drive
The more ram you give it the better it will run. You may have to strike a balance with 8GB of ram if you using the main os as well, at the same time. Only experience will tell you if that suits your needs.

The most important, inescapable fact here....is that you must have a good backup stored on an external drive. It will be the only thing that will save oyu if something goes south.
With pc's....everything is ok/good.....until it is Not. That is when the ahem hits the fan and all hell breaks loose.

 

[sneexe]

yes the assumption you have made is correct.....with a few amendments

1....When you boot from a usb stick, the os on the usb stick will be loaded into ram.....It will run in what is called LIVE mode. It will run slightly slower than if it was full installed on the drive. It will not enjoy persistence......in other words, as soon as you take that usb stick out.....any changes you made to the os will be lost. Forever.

2... It is possible to set that usb stick up with persistence so that changes you make to the OS are preserved.
A usb stick of at least 60GB (approx is needed. @Brickwizard can tell you more about that

3.you would be able install a Virtiual machine on your pc. A portion of the available ram is used to run it, and you also allow it to use a portion of the main drive
The more ram you give it the better it will run. You may have to strike a balance with 8GB of ram if you using the main os as well, at the same time. Only experience will tell you if that suits your needs.

The most important, inescapable fact here....is that you must have a good backup stored on an external drive. It will be the only thing that will save oyu if something goes south.
With pc's....everything is ok/good.....until it is Not. That is when the ahem hits the fan and all hell breaks loose.

Thanks again, all good tips to receive

I got a bit worried when reading more Linux user threads and one user noted that Linux is for people who just enjoy working on their computers, while other OS are for people who just need their computers to get work done. I'm hoping I'll find out that isn't entirely the case.

 

[sneexe]

BTW, are there any instances of people able to get MS Powerpoint working on Linux OS?

 

[Condobloke]

Libre Office -Impress, is considered a good alternative (Free with Linux)

 

[MikeWalsh]

@sneexe :-

BTW, are there any instances of people able to get MS Powerpoint working on Linux OS?

Um; not that I've been able to find. PowerPoint is another one like Outlook; it's impossible to run it under WINE for the simple reason that there's certain unique Windows system calls that just don't translate properly into the WINE environment's POSIX syscalls.....so consequently, it will always throw errors. (I could be wrong; it's a while since I tried it, and WINE has evolved massively over the last couple of years; maybe somebody else here has got it functional by now..?)

However, you can get exactly the same functionality by using either Impress in LibreOffice, Presentation in OpenOffice or Presentations under Softmaker's FreeOffice. These are all clones of PowerPoint and do exactly the same thing......there's probably others, too ; these are the 3 most widely-used under Linux, but there's several others available (yup; I forgot OnlyOffice.....again, it's called Presentation).

PowerPoint is widely used under Windows, so the open-source office suite developers all do their 'flavour' of it. There's little to choose between them, really; they all seem to work in much the same way.

Give 'em a try; they're all free to download and use, so what have you got to lose? You'll find there's very little you can do in Windows that can't be done under Linux; although in many cases the names will be unfamiliar to you, the capabilities will be there.


Mike.

 

[charlie.corder]

I'm basically tired of having to re-learn a new desktop UI everytime supporting an old OS becomes unviable for the commercial company...

Welcome @sneexe to the forum.
Amen to your comment about having to re-learn a new OS. I have found that once you have learned how Linux works, you won't have to re-learn it whenever a new version or update comes out.
I vouch for Libre Office with all of its' different sections - Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base.
I have not used Impress lately, but if I remember correctly, it does everything that Powerpoint does.
@MikeWalsh has said it very clearly "You'll find there's very little you can do in Windows that can't be done under Linux; although in many cases the names will be unfamiliar to you, the capabilities will be there."
Once you learn Linux, you will see that most everything is named more accurately. Example:
Let's say you want to write a letter; Which makes more sense, a program called Writer or one called Word?
Old Geezer,
Tango Charlie

 

[MikeWalsh]

I got a bit worried when reading more Linux user threads and one user noted that Linux is for people who just enjoy working on their computers, while other OS are for people who just need their computers to get work done. I'm hoping I'll find out that isn't entirely the case.

Oh, you'll find there's an awful lot of FUD gets spread about online.....more often than not from Windows/Mac users who've tried Linux and had a negative experience (for whatever reason). Yes, Linux will let let you work ON your system - and make it do absolutely anything you want it to do; where there's a will, there's a way, and the customization possibilities are virtually endless! - but above all else, it's a perfectly functional "daily driver", regardless of the distro you choose, and is a highly acceptable alternative to the "status quo" of the Redmond monopoly (which is all most people seem to know).

In recent years, many distro developers have gone out of their way to make their offerings as pleasant & easy-to-use as humanly possible.....certainly on a par with Windows, often far superior, and in every case without the constant distractions, annoyances & frustrations that seem to be inherent with that OS.

You'll find the majority of us here have been using various flavours of Linux exclusively for years. I'm now in my 11th year of using only Linux; first, a year with Ubuntu, plus some of the inevitable distro-hopping......and currently, more than a decade with a featherweight, yet full-featured single-user "hobbyist" distro called "Puppy" Linux. I haven't even looked at Windows in all that time, and I certainly don't miss it, I can tell you! That's been helped by the fact that I've never been tied to Windows for any kind of work reasons; I'm all but retired now, yet even when I was at work full-time, in my chosen occupation there was absolutely no use for any kind of automation, so computers made no sense whatsoever.

For me, computing has only EVER been a hobby; no more, no less.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Most folks will find that hard to understand.....computers and electronic data manipulation have become ubiquitous, and permeate almost every aspect of daily life. What you need to ask yourself is this; do you want to be controlled by a monolithic organization that only has its own aims in mind, and thinks it knows what you want better than YOU do.....or would you like the total freedom to shape your computing experience to suit yourself? Linux lets you do this.....yet stays in the background, out of your way, and just quietly gets on with what it does, keeping everything smoothly functioning together. And I will tell you THIS much; no Linux update will ever mess your system up (if it does, that's rare, believe me).....and will always ask your permission before it runs anyway.

It's a good system. Why do you think so many people are finally seeing Microsoft for what they are, and taking the plunge?


Mike.