Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Croydon Park, Sydney, Australia |
> I'm running 2 dual-boot PCs, older with PCLOS (PCLinuxOS) - and Win2k-SP4, the one I'm on now with PCLOS-2009.2, and XP-Pro-SP3.
XP rarely gets used - it's there because my ISP demands Windows or Mac... I recently put the Software for my Canon SX10 IS on it - just to see what it did - nothing I couldn't do as well or better in Linux.
With my cameras - I have the Canon and a Fuji S2000HD, mainly kept for the 1280 x 720 ISO-compliant MPEG4 / *.mp4-extension video - I just use a card-reader and download to a directory on a Desktop.
For graphics I work between Photoshop 7.01 (runs perfectly, fast, with all functions, in the PCLOS iteration of Wine) - and the latest version of Gimp. Between those I can do anything a very keen friend can do with Photoshop CS3 in XP.
As for Windows Users trying Linux for the first time - they've usually heard of the "Buntys" - Ubuntu (Gnome Environment), Kubuntu (KDE Enviro), Edubuntu, so on. Possibly because Ubuntu-etc is pushed by the South African Canonical Corporation, "Africa's Microsoft"....
There are far easier to install and use Linux Distros - PCLinuxOS, PCLOS, is one of them. It's a lot more "familiar" to Windows Users (I was a double US CompTIA A+ qualified Windows Tech for 11 years) - just imagine the Win2k style Menus, similar Taskbar (Panel, in Linux) - but a much more attractive working environment - running things across 6 or 8 Desktops at a time (up to 20 Desktops if you were THAT busy...) - with hundreds of Applications, Tools, Utilities, Games, etc - and over 10,000 more - which can be multiple-installed at the same time, via the Synaptic Install / Uninstall Untility.
Unlike Windows, with this system, I can open Synaptic, Click to Reload its record of what's in the Repository - Click "Update All" - and it downloads and updates, for the operating system, and every Application and Utility-etc installed in it. My last (Sunday) - full-update took 6 minutes for the downloads, and 4 to install them. Try that with Windows... Linux is vastly faster and easier!
If you do specific high-demand things, audio and video editing, music composing, graphics-rendering, so on - there are System Kernels optimised for different things. Just download and install other Kernels - and you can boot between them - they list on the GRUB Boot Menu below Linux, Windows, etc.
If you want to use Virtual Box - and need USB connections from, say, Windows 2000 running in it - the versions for most Distros in their Repositories don't have USB (they're the "open" versions.) Some Distros, including PCLOS, do have a Distro optimised version with USB on the Virtual Box site. Just download the RPM (now includes the Guest Additions and Full Manual) - and install it with Package Manager. You can then run scanners, printers, external-hard-drives, etc, from Win2k (etc) - in V-Box.
Using Win2k-SP4 in V-Box is far less of a performance-hit than running XP-Pro, and most things (Adobe, Ulead, etc) - you'll need will run in Win2k-SP4.
As for setting-up dual-boot being difficult...? Not with PCLOS. I set this new PC up last month, starting with the XP that came on it. That had a C:-System partion, D: was the burner-drive, and "rest-of-drive" of the 320GB, was E:-drive. All in NTFS5, of course.
So I just did it the easy way - used my old Partition Magic 7, made E:-drive 50GB, and an F:-drive of 30GB, and converted F: to FAT32. Reason - as a Transfer partition between systems. Linux handles Copy, Move, Drag-Drop, so on, between Ext3 (the Linux fully journalling filesystem) - and in Linux, F:-drive just comes up as TRANS /hdc6. Open it and treat as another Linux partition. Over in Windows - anything put into it in Linux, is in F:-drive.
The changed Windows layout was then C:-25GB, E:-50GB, F:-30GB.
Put in the PCLOS LiveCD (can run a PC bypassing hard-drive - or with a failed or absent hard-drive - or rescue-copy - to DVDs or XHD - data from an unbootable Windows install) - in the drive, change BIOS to Boot from CD/DVD - and run the CD up to Linux Desktop.
From there - click on the "Install to Hard-Drive" Wizard - and follow instructions as it works through them. A reasonably bright kid of 12 could follow the Wizard... when finished - the install took 11 minutes on this AMD-3GHz dualcore 6000 with 2GB of DDR2 Corsair) - reboot once, and up to working Desktop.
The default install gives 4 Desktops, I like 6 - a few clicks - 6! Configure Networking / Internet - a few clicks in Control-Centre. Set up Shorewall Firewall - 4 clicks in Control-Centre. Close CC - open Firefox to "check Internet" - yes, okay. Close FF - open Synaptic - and fully update the operating system and every app on it - since the 2009.2 LiveCD was made in June....
And a few minutes later - a fully updated new Linux install (partnered to an XP-Pro install, complete with Transfer Partition) - total time - from Close-XP and reboot to change the BIOS to run from LiveCD - 36 minutes.
If anyone needs a detailed run-through of how to install PCLinuxOS (yes, I did my "Distro Wander", through 9 or 10 other Distros between 2000 and 2005, when I found PCLOS and stayed with it) - dual-boot with Win2k or XP - post back and say so...!
Yes - this is being done from Linux. All of my Internetting is... 9 years, not a Virus, Trojan, Worm, Rootkit, or Hacker.... See Pic.
Regards, Dave.
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