For 2019 it's going to be Linux and Windows 10 for me

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amiga500

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Topic # 243757 30-Dec-2018 12:02

Now that Windows 10 has matured quite a lot I've decided that for my desktop PC I will run Windows and Linux on separate hard drives. I'm currently running Xubuntu 16.04.3 & while it's not flashy it seems stable and provides a desktop for my program icons - that is all I want for a desktop.

By moving a SATA cable I can now swap from Windows to Linux in under 2 minutes. One of the main advantages of running the two operating systems is that if you encounter something strange it is easy to determine whether it is a Windows bug, a Linux bug, or a hardware problem.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/reasons-why-linux-plagued-bugs/

This is an interesting article with some worthwhile comments. He is so right when saying that fixing bugs is actually very boring.

Recently I encountered a strange bug where a Linux install would stop at the partitioning stage or at the timezone screen. This is a well documented bug affecting Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint going back to at least 2014. On rebooting and looking at the drive with Gparted the partitions had been created but the install would just hang. The experts writing about this bug were saying it was hard to reproduce and seemed to be very random. In my case I was able to fix it by doing a Windows 10 install onto the hard drive & then running the Xubuntu install, or by running a Xubuntu install a second time. (This is all fixed now so I'm not looking for help!)

I have done lots of Ubuntu installs in the last 2 years and never encountered this issue before. The only thing I have done differently is that a month or so ago I did tinker with a Windows installation by shrinking the windows partition and possibly just possibly it did something strange with the partition table. I've spent a couple or hours on Google reading up on this install bug & trying to figure out why it happened to me now using exactly the same dvd install disk, cd rom drive, etc. I have two copies of the Xubuntu 16.04.3 dvd & two cd rom drives one of them an external version. Anyway, as I said all this is for information only I have everything working just fine now!

siyuan

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Reply # 2152214 30-Dec-2018 13:15

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I'm curious why you would prefer swapping the SATA cable as opposed to setup multiple boot entries, or at least use the BIOS/UEFI boot menu?

amiga500

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Reply # 2152228 30-Dec-2018 13:46

siyuan: I'm curious why you would prefer swapping the SATA cable as opposed to setup multiple boot entries, or at least use the BIOS/UEFI boot menu?

Yes, good question. I've never gotten around to setting up multiple boot entries. I sometimes use the bios boot menu, but for some reason I find it annoying to see the hd devoted to Windows sitting on the Linux desktop. My plan is to use Linux 95% of the time but have the Windows 10 installation ready to go when it's needed.

siyuan

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Reply # 2152246 30-Dec-2018 14:28

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I'd think turning off the SATA port for the Windows drive would be way easier than swapping the cable around? Most BIOSes should have such options.

Anyway, good choice going with Linux. I still run the very same Linux install from more than a decade ago, never had to reinstall it, never slowed down like Windows (heck even Android does that nowadays). It even seemlessly migrated to various PCs over the years.

MikeB4

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Reply # 2152257 30-Dec-2018 14:59

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For me it is MacOS, Linux and Android. I am moving away from Windows mainly due Ads and annoying "will I recommend" and other pesky nagging.

Mike
Retired IT Manager.
The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.

Mac user, Windows curser, Chrome OS desired.

A Tiger in Africa, probably escaped from the Zoo.

muppet

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Reply # 2152260 30-Dec-2018 15:10

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Pretty sure that 2019 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop.

old3eyes

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Reply # 2152328 30-Dec-2018 16:28

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muppet:

Pretty sure that 2019 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop.

Haven't they said this for the past 20 years??

Regards,

Old3eyes

amiga500

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Reply # 2152329 30-Dec-2018 16:34

muppet:

Pretty sure that 2019 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop.

A few years ago I read a story on a Linux news type website saying that the French police had just signed up for 40000 Linux machines for their police stations. If they had 40000 identical computers all running the same software it would be a happy time for the police & their support team.

Problem is that just because Linux works really well on my desktop does not mean it will work all that well on my friend's Acer or whatever laptop & that is why Linux is stuck at 1 or 2 percent of the desktop usage. Imagine trying to make money as a self employed Linux tech. with people bringing all sorts of laptops all with different hardware and problems. At least with Windows if people bring them somewhere to be fixed they are actually meant to work with Windows.

TwoSeven

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Reply # 2152344 30-Dec-2018 18:00

I just use the linux subsystem on windows for most stuff. Typically interacting with my IoT cluster. I do have a rasbian VM that I can remote into, but dont use it much. Its just to test development stuff - so I can roll the snapshot back from time to time.

Going to mess round with some cross platform development in Visual Studio at some stage when I get round to it.

Software Engineer

toejam316

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Reply # 2152345 30-Dec-2018 18:34

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siyuan: I'm curious why you would prefer swapping the SATA cable as opposed to setup multiple boot entries, or at least use the BIOS/UEFI boot menu?

The bigger concern I would have is the mechanical stress on the SATA connector - they're not the most robust, and aren't designed for this sort of constant wear (to my knowledge).

If you were to go with this avenue, I'd recommend getting a 5.25" hot swap drive bay and putting your OS drives in caddys - then you can power down, swap the drive caddy, and power back up with minimal wear, and a much easier to replace component should it fail.

muppet

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Reply # 2152371 30-Dec-2018 19:39

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old3eyes:

muppet:

Pretty sure that 2019 will be the year of Linux on the Desktop.

Haven't they said this for the past 20 years??

aspett

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Reply # 2152374 30-Dec-2018 19:43

I'm swapping from a MBP to a Thinkpad X1E which will be running Linux come late Jan/early Feb for software development. Looking forward to getting back to it!