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Old 25-01-2016, 03:42   #1
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Win 10 vs LINUX

Hi, I have been wrestling with Windows 10. Tried getting round auto updates screwing with Satellite connections, even tried killing it with a firewall. Now finding all sorts of bug with wifi connected devices printers gone missing a whole gambit of bugs that makes taking this OS to sea quite frankly dangerous.

So I would like to install and run Linux on the boat, probably on all my PC's.

1. Which version is the most suitable (ease of use) and which one is most appropriate for running OCPN?

2. I reluctantly have run some Windows progs. How do I do this?

3. What are the major pitfalls of this or should I just install Win 7.

Thanks
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Old 25-01-2016, 04:09   #2
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

I run both and prefer Linux. The best "newbie" choice, IMHO, is either Ubuntu if your pc has regular grunt or Mint which is better for, say, PC's that just cope with XP.

Now you can easily try Linux without first deleting Windows using a number of methods ranging from running directly off a DVD (LiveCD) or within a virtual machine using VirtualBox or a couple of in between methods. The Ubuntu website will explain the options.

If you do go Linux, you can install windows as a virtual machine under VirtualBox and run your windows programs directly on the windows virtual machine. There is also a windows emulator within Linux called Wine which allows Windows apps to run natively (assuming you're using an intel CPU) but it can be a bit hit and miss. As for Windows programs in general, if you're happy to try some Linux replacements, you may be able to forgo these apps altogether.

Finally, Linux installs really easily for 95% of features, but sorting that remaining 5% can be a challenge, and lack of vendor support for some hardware drivers can be a showstopper, but this is becoming less and less of a problem.

In summary, Windows 10 is nice, installs easily but has that classic Windows trait of things just randomly stopping working every now and again for no apparent reason, whereas Linux tends to remain bulletproof but can be a challenge at times for the less tech savvy.

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Old 25-01-2016, 04:14   #3
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

My personal choice is Fedora. In fact is the 'beta' of Red Hat. Very stable, well supported, and also has a lot of the latest available software packages. Ubuntu has the easiest setup and config, but to me it looks less 'professional'.

There is no problem in installing a dual boot system W10/Fedora, in fact that's my setup.

The main drawback is that you must be somewhat knowledgeable to fiddle with Linux. There are hundreds of GUI utilities for configuring and setup your system (you can choose among a wide variety of desktops, like Gnome, KDE, XFCE...) but it's much faster to just open a terminal window and use the command line, so you can see what's under the hood.

Probably I'm not a typical user, but I only start Windows once a week or so.
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Old 26-01-2016, 04:09   #4
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

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Which version is the most suitable (ease of use) and which one is most appropriate for running OCPN?
If you are new to Linux, you can try Navigatrix, a live cd/usb distro that already comes with OCPN installed, among a lot af usefull programs aimed to navigation ready to use. Even more, the distro will run from an USB stick, you can use it without install anytihng to the your hard disk.
Link:Navigatrix.net - A Voyager's Companion
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Old 26-01-2016, 05:15   #5
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

I haven't tried Win10 myself, but I use Linux. When I decided to switch, I found out I have a second drive bay and moved the Win7 drive to the second and used an SSD for the primary and installed LMDE2 (Linux Mint) and it has worked better/faster.

When I was testing out Linux versions, I installed them on an external hard drive and booted from that drive and it still ran faster than the internal hard drive running windows. If you're not familiar with Linux, you can easily use a Live Disk version or do a full install onto a thumb drive to test things out and get a feel for it.

I'm glad I went with Linux. I don't boot under windows much any more unless there's something I need to do for work.

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Old 26-01-2016, 05:52   #6
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

I switched to a VMWare base years ago... from there I can run multiple versions of Linux, Windows, MacOS (assuming a mac platform), etc. Ubuntu seems the easiest transition for those used to Windows... the ONLY Windows app I ever run is Airmail; everything else is native Linux or Mac... very stable and easy to switch between systems... still running XP for Airmail/RMS Express btw...
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Old 26-01-2016, 06:20   #7
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

I've recently been through the same exercise.

I am seriously tempted by Linux -- my whole personal history with computers started with UNIX, then DOS, and I have never liked GUI-captive OS's, so Linux would be so nice.

But what stops me is (a) great amount of fiddling which might be required to get drivers right; (b) lack of many commercial software products.

I was really struck last summer having an extremely tech savvy young man on board, a professional programmer, who loves and advocates Linux, who spent an entire day and missed a couple of his watches, because he couldn't get some driver to work. Wow, I really don't want to spend my time on that kind of thing.

The second thing is I am not retired, and my work requires interacting with my office server and all kinds of systems used in my office and by our clients, partners, etc. A lot of these things are not available in Linux, so at the very least, I would have to dual boot, which is a PITA.

I hate Windows, and I hate Mac even 10x more. I hate Windows 7 and I don't like Windows 10.

But you might try Windows 8.1, which is built on totally different principles. It was intended to work really well on tablets, but many of the ideas -- which diverge radically from standard Windows thinking, and are even totally different from Android etc. -- are brilliant.

I bought a laptop last fall with Win 8.1 installed. I upgraded to Win 10, hated it, and went back to 8.1. I like it better by far than any other Windows version, and I like it more and more. The main thing about it is that it gets away from the stupid idea -- started by the original McIntosh, that a good way to interact with the machine is to have this virtual space with virtual objects scattered on it, which you fiddle with with a pointing device, dragging them around, and dropping them in different places in this featureless and ungranular space. Win 8.1 is highly granular - it has icons, but they don't just lie around on this featureless desktop. You have all kinds of gestures which powerfully supplement keyboard shortcuts. YMMV, but I really like it, and you might want to check it out.
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Old 26-01-2016, 06:24   #8
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

I'm a software engineer whose been using Linux since before the kernel was at 1.0. I've written all manner of apps and device drivers for it, even ported it (rewrote the lowest level bits) to a new hardware platform. I'm a big fan of free, open source software and use the gnu compiler collection almost exclusively.

But I have to say, I think Linux in general has lost its way to some degree. Much like a ship at sea, a large software system needs to be made up of deterministic, understandable subsystems with sensible, identifiable communications/connections/dependancies between those modules. Linux has grown rather organically in the last decade, with, IMHO, a lack of proper engineering guiding the architecture of all the new features. By not properly planning how different modules will communicate, developers paint themselves in the corner with the net result being a system with more complexity than is ultimately necessary. Complexity is the enemy of understandability, which makes it the enemy of demonstrable reliability.

Long story short- linux can be annoying and brittle. I'd use a mac, with OS-X, and VMWARE Fusion (cheap!) for anything that NEEDS windows. There are -zero- compatibilty issues with this rig, and since Os-x only needs to be validated on the small number of machines Apple makes, its almost guaranteed to be more stable.
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Old 26-01-2016, 06:48   #9
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tupaia View Post
2. I reluctantly have run some Windows progs. How do
WINE can run quite a few, which windows progs do you think you need?

The only one I really need windows for is the RMS winlink ham radio email prog.

Everything else so far is catered for.
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Old 26-01-2016, 07:01   #10
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockhead View Post
I've recently been through the same exercise.

I am seriously tempted by Linux -- my whole personal history with computers started with UNIX, then DOS, and I have never liked GUI-captive OS's, so Linux would be so nice.

But what stops me is (a) great amount of fiddling which might be required to get drivers right; (b) lack of many commercial software products.

I was really struck last summer having an extremely tech savvy young man on board, a professional programmer, who loves and advocates Linux, who spent an entire day and missed a couple of his watches, because he couldn't get some driver to work. Wow, I really don't want to spend my time on that kind of thing.

The second thing is I am not retired, and my work requires interacting with my office server and all kinds of systems used in my office and by our clients, partners, etc. A lot of these things are not available in Linux, so at the very least, I would have to dual boot, which is a PITA.

I hate Windows, and I hate Mac even 10x more. I hate Windows 7 and I don't like Windows 10.

But you might try Windows 8.1, which is built on totally different principles. It was intended to work really well on tablets, but many of the ideas -- which diverge radically from standard Windows thinking, and are even totally different from Android etc. -- are brilliant.

I bought a laptop last fall with Win 8.1 installed. I upgraded to Win 10, hated it, and went back to 8.1. I like it better by far than any other Windows version, and I like it more and more. The main thing about it is that it gets away from the stupid idea -- started by the original McIntosh, that a good way to interact with the machine is to have this virtual space with virtual objects scattered on it, which you fiddle with with a pointing device, dragging them around, and dropping them in different places in this featureless and ungranular space. Win 8.1 is highly granular - it has icons, but they don't just lie around on this featureless desktop. You have all kinds of gestures which powerfully supplement keyboard shortcuts. YMMV, but I really like it, and you might want to check it out.
There are a lot of third party Linux drivers. However, you usually have to enable the option to allow automatic 3rd party driver installations at installation. This is something to do with open source licensing conditions. Armed with available drivers, I actually think devices like printers, for example, install automatically so easily in Linux compared to Windows that it is almost embarrassing. But then again, get an unsupported device and you are SOL.

I connect to many remote systems in the course of my work, usually using either Rdp, teamviewer or ssh, and I do this mostly in Linux. The only show stopper I come across is with citrix reciever which doesn't have a Linux client.

I'm not a fan of dual booting. Just too damned annoying having to shut-down and reboot and consumes too much disk space. Virtual machines under a Linux host are they way to go, although it pays to add some extra memory to the system. I run up to 4 virtual machines at a time on my computer which is very coolly configured to have the Linux host as the file and print server with the virtual machines all available on the rest of the network.

I should add, one often overlooked feature of Linux is the ability to move an installation to a different computer (within reason) by either cloning hard drives or simply moving the hard disk across. This is an invaluable feature if you go through a lot of cheap laptops on the boat! Try that with windows and it either BSOD's or morphs into licensing hell.

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Old 26-01-2016, 07:40   #11
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

Put simply. I ran a dual boot setup because CMAPECS with the CMAP world charts would only run on Windows. That is until I discovered OpenCPN. Oh happy day when I could finally get Windows off of my PC! Go for just about any flavor of linux and you'll have a more robust operating system and sophisticated free programs to boot. While Fedora is my favorite on a PC, I discovered Ubuntu Precise plays better on my Motorola Xoom, with OpenCPN running in a chroot environment.
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Old 26-01-2016, 08:35   #12
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

If you have an old machine, going back to W7 is going to be the easiest but there aren't any "pitfalls" doing a dual install with Linux Mint that I'm aware of...though I'd expect to need to hunt down maybe an outlying hardware driver or two on some machines....but on a plain jane machine the experience is pretty good from reports. Worked perfectly on this one.

I still have the dual boot option .to just see which one I tend to choose withouut thinking about it. So far, I am using the new Linux 95% of the time so it is ez to get along with Linux Mint day to day.
You can get to all your windows stuff from linux..but... there's learning to be done. Software replacements to find...or just run your normal windows apps in Wine (which I am using with Firefox right now)

OpenCpn? well, pretty much the general help is going to be to the widest usr base, and that's Windows until it wears everybody out..

Some linux things are a little annoying. You need to "Open as root" to see all the files- exactly like the old "Run as Administrator" in windows.
so, if you get tired, just reboot to windows and come back to the linux when you get angry again.

Or, the usb OS-on-a-stick is a very viable option- Maybe the best if you have a lot of computers all around. I like puppy-linux for this because I can make "saves" for every machine (so the various hardware loads automatically).
Plus, if you screw up, or you are on someone else's machine, you leave nothing behind or you don't "save" it.. the core OS remains intact and unchanged. But getting OCPN to work on Puppy.. dependencies are needed, a particular window manager, drivers for the gps and so on beyond the core 120mb Puppy and it's a bit involved.
(Not sure how Marinux compares but I've heard good things about it)

Compare this to what people say about installing W10! The choice is pretty plain, IMO.
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Old 26-01-2016, 08:40   #13
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

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Originally Posted by Reefmagnet View Post

I connect to many remote systems in the course of my work, usually using either Rdp, teamviewer or ssh, and I do this mostly in Linux. The only show stopper I come across is with citrix reciever which doesn't have a Linux client.

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Citrix has a Linux version. Works even on my BananaPi,

https://www.citrix.com/downloads/cit...ux-latest.html

But you have to copy the right certificates from Firefox.
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Old 28-01-2016, 15:26   #14
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

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Originally Posted by HappySeagull View Post
If you have an old machine, going back to W7 is going to be the easiest but there aren't any "pitfalls" doing a dual install with Linux Mint that I'm aware of...though I'd expect to need to hunt down maybe an outlying hardware driver or two on some machines....but on a plain jane machine the experience is pretty good from reports. Worked perfectly on this one.

I still have the dual boot option .to just see which one I tend to choose withouut thinking about it. So far, I am using the new Linux 95% of the time so it is ez to get along with Linux Mint day to day.
You can get to all your windows stuff from linux..but... there's learning to be done. Software replacements to find...or just run your normal windows apps in Wine (which I am using with Firefox right now)

OpenCpn? well, pretty much the general help is going to be to the widest usr base, and that's Windows until it wears everybody out..

Some linux things are a little annoying. You need to "Open as root" to see all the files- exactly like the old "Run as Administrator" in windows.
so, if you get tired, just reboot to windows and come back to the linux when you get angry again.

Or, the usb OS-on-a-stick is a very viable option- Maybe the best if you have a lot of computers all around. I like puppy-linux for this because I can make "saves" for every machine (so the various hardware loads automatically).
Plus, if you screw up, or you are on someone else's machine, you leave nothing behind or you don't "save" it.. the core OS remains intact and unchanged. But getting OCPN to work on Puppy.. dependencies are needed, a particular window manager, drivers for the gps and so on beyond the core 120mb Puppy and it's a bit involved.
(Not sure how Marinux compares but I've heard good things about it)

Compare this to what people say about installing W10! The choice is pretty plain, IMO.
Firstly thanks for all the input..

The above is pretty good summary. The exception is that many newer machines (Win 7) use UEFI this is different from the traditional BIOS and this makes it quite difficult to dual boot and and Win 8 and 10 boot options make it even more difficult to dual boot or even run Linux from a USB stick.

My personal decision has been to reload Win 7 on all my machines that has proved simple and I have a copy of Linux on a stick that I will try out.
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Old 28-01-2016, 15:31   #15
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Re: Win 10 vs LINUX

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Originally Posted by verkerkbr View Post
Citrix has a Linux version. Works even on my BananaPi,

https://www.citrix.com/downloads/cit...ux-latest.html

But you have to copy the right certificates from Firefox.
Cheers, it's not often I use this protocol, but I'll have a crack at this install next time.

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