Considering Linux

M

mikehinkle

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Always ran XP Pro on all my systems, bought a broken Dell Inspiron n411z, fixed it and have had it running windows 7 ultimate. Since downgrading to XP is out the window I have dual booted mac osx (biggest hassle ever), and windows 8, neither of which I liked very much and am now considering trying Linux.

I wouldn't say I am a pro with computers but I know enough to navigate around. Just need help determining with my computer specifications the best version to run.

Just want something smooth running, good performance. All I really do with the pc is browse the web, burn dvds, use it to root and install custom roms on phones, videos, java based gaming. I appreciate all info, all computer specifics are located in the attached photos. Thanks!
 

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The desktop environment is what uses the most system resources. A light desktop environment gives the best performance. So any Linux distribution that uses a light DE will be nice. These DEs may be LXDE (Light X desktop environment), XFCE, razor-qt, E11 (enlightenment), and window managers only. So depending on what your taste in graphics is any of those will work. Some distributions of Linux that have these light environments include LUbuntu, XUbuntu, Slackware, Voyager, Enlightenment Linux(Luna), Arch (must build yourself, but very rewarding), Ultimate Edition 3.4 light, and maybe #! (crunch bang). There are MANY more available but these systems give the best performance. But be warned that these systems do not always provide much eye candy, if that is something you are looking for.
 
The desktop environment is what uses the most system resources. A light desktop environment gives the best performance. So any Linux distribution that uses a light DE will be nice. These DEs may be LXDE (Light X desktop environment), XFCE, razor-qt, E11 (enlightenment), and window managers only. So depending on what your taste in graphics is any of those will work. Some distributions of Linux that have these light environments include LUbuntu, XUbuntu, Slackware, Voyager, Enlightenment Linux(Luna), Arch (must build yourself, but very rewarding), Ultimate Edition 3.4 light, and maybe #! (crunch bang). There are MANY more available but these systems give the best performance. But be warned that these systems do not always provide much eye candy, if that is something you are looking for.

eye candy doesn't matter. what do you mean my taste in graphics? the interface design doesn't matter to me all that much. i just booted linux mint 15 from a usb to see what it looked like and it looked pretty smooth and ran well.. i'm assuming it'd be a tad more responsive once installed on my hd as opposed to running from a usb.

kept running into the issue of no root defined when trying to install to a ext4 partition? i have a 650gb hd. 360 is accumulated on my windows partition and the other 210 i have set aside for linux. i used the gpart program in linux to format the fat32 partiton i had to a ext4 but the install still failed.

as long as i do not lose graphics as far as watching movies then like i said i'm not concerened..

will try this edition of linux mint 15 if i can get it working, any ideas? maybe i'm not formatting something correctly?
 
Many Linux users disagree on what the desktop should look like, if you even have one. For example, KDE vs Unity. LXDE vs XFCE. Many choices, different tastes on style.

When installing Linux, many different directories are created. / is root, /home is the user directories, etc. It appears you did not tell the installer where / is supposed to be. Normally this can be done in the "something else" section of the installer..
 
This is unnecessary for *nix / partitions, only the windows bootloader requires you to set the boot flag.

Can someone speak english? Sorry, so when I open the gpart program, I then format the partition as ext4 I didn't see a option for the boot flag? or anything related? Maybe i'm just missing something.

Are you saying I need to boot from the system rescue disk to format the partiton? and then boot from the mint install usb I have?

Thanks guys, i'm just somewhat confused. Never used linux at all prior to this.
 
You may be just missing something... I don't use graphical partitioning programs, so no idea on that. (My favourite partitioner is cfdisk.)

You don't need to set the boot flag.
 
I know the install USB works because I can boot in Linux via the USB drive.

I partitioned the drive both using windows an gpart.

I don't know what I could be doing wrong?
 
How do I install the bootloader? Sorry I didn't know. I just assumed I could just partition space and install it. Nowhere have I read anyone say anything about using grub as the bootloader.
 
How do I install a bootloader? Without replacing my current for windows so I can still boot both?
 
To start off, you need to know how boot loaders work. Essentially when the computer boots it looks in the MBR (master boot record) of the hard drive. This is where the boot loader is located. Assuming that you have only one hard drive then Windows already has control of the MBR. There are two possibilities then. One is to install grub to the MBR. As long as you have the os-prober libraries installed the grub will have an entry for Windows and the Linux distribution you are using. However, if you remove the Linux partitions, you will have to reinstall the Windows boot loader to the MBR using an install disk. The second option is to install grub to the Linux partition only. Then, using a program called EasyBCD in Windows you can add Linux to the Windows boot loader. When you boot the computer, the Windows boot loader will appear and have entries for both systems. When you select the Linux distribution the Windows boot loader will Chain load Grub and allow you to boot Linux.

Assuming Ubuntu..
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Installing
 

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