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e-flat minor 853

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I've been stuck using a Windows 8.1 box but that is end of life soon. I plan to install Linux on it. I've read some on various forums, including here, about various flavors of Linux. I'm thinking of Debian and Mint but am open to anything.

I've been using computers for a long time. My favorite OS was always OS/2 (which I still use.) I wrote in Basic, Fortran and APL decades ago. I'm not afraid of the command line, editing ini files, doing manual installations, using wildly different desktops, modifying settings, etc. etc. I detest Windows and Mac because of the training wheels and guard rails treatment of users, not to mention the spyware aspect.

In choosing which to install, it seems to me the most important thing is to make sure the hardware in my box is supported. Does that make sense?

I have this:
Acer Aspire TC-120
AMD A10-6700 (64-bit)

Chipset AMD A78

BIOS American Megatrends Inc. P11-A4, 04/26/16 | SMBIOS Version 2.8 | BIOS Mode UEFI
A 2020 BIOS update is available but I saw lots of users bricked their computers with this and Acer didn't help them at all.

Soon to be 32GB RAM

Soon to be a new SDD

Graphics AMD Radeon HD 8670D

Realtek RTL8168 Integrated Gigabit Ethernet Controller for PCI Express (w/SPI)

Qualcomm Atheros AR956x Wireless Network Adapter
IEEE 802.11b/g/n
This box isn't near the router, so it will need to communicate with the router via WiFi. As a last resort I could move it to another room and connect to the router via cable, but I don't really want to do that.

Analog Devices ADI 198x Integrated HD Audio

AMD USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller

Does anything look unusual, or will it be hard to find drivers in most Linux distributions?

Thanks
 


That should be just fine. The easiest way to tell is to just boot to a live USB and see if the hardware works. It won't break anything unless you tell it to.
 
G'day "Junior" (you are 13 days my junior :)) and welcome to linux.org, from DownUnder.

RAM is not an issue here, so any Linux will run on that baby. Mint and Debian are solid choices, Debian has a little more of a learning curve, but you may not worry about that.

SSD - size? And is it in addition to, or to replace, the 1 TB SATA HDD? I suggest the former if possible. Provides more options.

MORE ON DISTROS - Make DistroWatch your friend, and its Page Hit Popularity (tab near top far right) gives an idea of popular distros. Top 50 or so will have good support.

MX-19 (Debian-based), Linux Lite (Ubuntu-based), and Manjaro (Arch-based) are all worth a look. I run 70 Linux on this rig so have an opinion on lots of them.

TIMESHIFT - is a system restore application, better than Windows Restore, more flexible, and comes installed with Linux Mint, Linux Lite and some Manjaro.

Read the Spoiler below for some info - click to open, click to close


SOFTWARE ALTERNATIVES

If looking for substitutes for essential Windows software, make AlternativeTo your friend, just Google eg

alternative to MS Office

or other and it will be in first few entries, look for suggestions that include Linux.

LIVE CD/DVD/USB

@KGIII has mentioned testing for driver availability. Many of the drivers you may need are already written into and supported by, the Linux Kernel. If not, they can be added by various means.

Use the Live environment to check eg your printer/s, graphics, audio, wifi &c and anything that works live should translate after an install.

BURNING SOLUTIONS

You may choose to use Rufus from Windows, or else there are solutions you may later use in Linux, some of which are cross-platform, such as

Balena Etcher
Unetbootin
Ventoy

for burning the isos.

Any questions, fire away.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
Thanks! I think this box only permits one hard drive. I haven't opened it up yet to look, and the info isn't in the manual. I have no interest in remaining with Windows, so I'm going to remove the Windows drive and replace it with a new drive. I understand the principle of having the system and swap on a different drive than data, but I'm sure this will be so much faster than Win 8.1 it won't bother me to have just one drive. I haven't come close to filling the 1TB drive but I'm getting a 2TB.

I've been using Stardock Systems Open Office through Libre Office for years. I already moved my data files to peripheral FAT32 drives. I'll refresh them when I'm about to make the transition, then copy the data back to the HD in the box.
 
If you want to run Debian I recommend The Debian Administrators Handbook:


Here's the link to download Debian. I'm running Debian 10 Gnome and Debian 10 Mate. Both are incredibly stable!

 
G'day e0flat minor 853 (?js bach?), Welcome to Linux .org

You are already in good hands with the two members above

Your internal hard drive....1TB......you can buy a relatively inexpensive crade/enclosure and mount it Externally (if you need the room, which is, i guess, unlikely at the moment.

I can tell you now. The increase in speed will at first frighten you.
 
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Like I was telling another new user last night, grab a series of distros, run them in Virtualbox, and play with them to see how each one works. Then just install the one that works the most for you.
 
I understand the principle of having the system and swap on a different drive than data, but I'm sure this will be so much faster than Win 8.1 it won't bother me to have just one drive.

Quite likely.

I was more thinking of Timeshift, which application's snapshots are best stored on a separate drive. Then if a drive fails, or a Distro is borked, you can easily restore it from where it is stored off drive.

The choices are of course yours, but if your budget and your skill set are up to it, I would be inclined to try Brian's @Condobloke 's suggestion.

Cheers

Wiz
 
Writing this from a successful hard disk install of Debian. It was substantially less trouble than I expected.

Downloaded the Debian Live Cinnamon ISO. Used win32diskimager as described here https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/index.en.html#write-usb to burn to a USB stick. Tried to boot from USB: Hardware issues; drivers missing. I decided I probably should use the one with non-free drivers.

Downloaded Debian Live Cinnamon ISO with non-free drivers. Found USB stick is no longer recognizable by computer. win32diskimager must have done something. I didn't want to keep ruining USB sticks.

Got some blank DVDs. Wrote Debian Live Cinnamon with non-free drivers ISO to DVD.

Booted from non-free Debian Live DVD. Booted properly to desktop; was able to establish wireless network connection; was able to see files on old Windows HD in computer (whose data had already been copied to external USB mass storage drives.)

Removed old Windows HD, installed new RAM, installed new 2TB internal SDD HD, booted successfully to desktop with Debian Live non-free ISO. There's only rack space for one drive in this machine, and I didn't want to fiddle with installing more. I have an external USB adapter to read IDE and SATA drives of all sizes. I planned to use it to connect a drive identical to the HD I just installed to use for Timeshift backup.

Read a bit about installing in The Debian Administrator's Handbook. Decided since I'm a new user, have a fairly large HDD, and nobody else will be using this desktop, to install everything into one partition with guided install. Looked at LVM information in manual too, and encryption information. Looked at APT information; manual suggested installer would go online and find updates to everything during install. I've used an OS/2 version of LVM so I understand the concepts; I don't think I need that functionality on a standalone desktop. I would like the disk and swap encrypted.

Went to desktop and clicked Install icon. I walked through it. I thought the manual implied I'd be offered a chance to encrypt, but I wasn't. I wasn't offered the chance to connect to the network and update. I did the install, and rebooted.

I configured the wireless network, and here I am.

So my questions:

*
Edit: I started reading the administrator's manual... and the only thing I still wonder about is encrypting.

To encrypt, do I need to go read the admin manual, or is this somewhere in the settings? Does disk encrypt only work with LVM?

Thanks.
 
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Encryption should have been done during the installation. You can do it after the installation, but it ain't pretty - or easy. And, no... You should be able to encrypt 'regular' partitions just fine.

The good news is that it's not all that hard to install and a few more installations will have you doing it much more easily. I pretty much always remind people to not get too attached to your first installation. You'll be installing it a few more times. Trust me...
 
I got Debian Buster installed and running. I've been using it for almost two weeks, for everything I do, business and personal. The only thing that will probably never work is my old scanner, a Brother DS700D.

I was fairly disappointed at how much is not documented at debian.org, specifically about encrypting disks and installing non-free drivers. I had to do a lot of searching on other sites, where I didn't know for sure whether the information would be correct.

I had to do a huge amount of the install by trial and error, because what is shown in the official manuals doesn't much resemble the actual installer (neither graphical, nor text-mode.) I discovered the Debian Live ISO has a different installer than other ISOs, and there seems to be no option for encryption if installing from the Live iso. Even though I could operate all the hardware in my box with a system running from a Debian Live DVD, it would not install the non-free firmware, so that install would not run. I had to erase the hard disk and install from the "Current with non-free firmware" ISO disc.

So for anybody who winds up in this thread via a search... if you want to do an install, encrypting your disks, with hardware that has drivers not on the standard Debian version:

When I put the Debian Live ISO on a USB stick with a Windows tool, it seems to have ruined the stick. I was able to boot from that USB stick once. Then my system would not see it when I inserted it. So I suggest you put your install ISO onto a DVD, and not risk ruining a USB stick.

Have another computer available with Web access to look up stuff. My phone worked adequately.

Put your network/router ID and password someplace where you can get to it easily. You will probably need to enter it manually. I had to do it about 25 times during many attempts to get things working. I sent myself a ProtonMail E-mail, which is automaticaly encrypted when sent to another ProtonMail user.

Get the iso with the non-free firmware. They are slightly difficult to find. They are currently here, with some explanation here, but they might move elsewhere in the future.

I wanted encrypted disks. The setup seems not documented at all. I found an explanation that worked for me online, but I won't reference it here, because I don't know whether it's the right way to do things. I used the Advanced install option. For partitioning I chose to use LVM Volumes Encrypted. I used my entire disk for all partitions. /boot is an unencrypted partition. The rest of the disk contains an LVM volume with encrypted partitions the installer set up for me. The installer will set things up this way if you choose to use LVM with encrypted partitions. I had to type in the disk password for each partition. It expects you to do it twice for each partition, but you can use copy and paste to insert the password.

I tried to install with the current (Buster) ISO with non-free firmware. After the install my system had lots of stuff that didn't work properly. It turned out the correct firmware was not sensed and not installed, so I spent a couple of days looking for and installing firmware packages, changing trusted download sites, etc. The standard upgrade doesn't upgrade stuff you haven't already installed, so you need to find and install the firmware packages on your own.

This is the first version of Linux I've installed. I can't imagine many people with no Linux experience would keep trying with Debian until they got it right unless they had a box with hardware running well with the standard, free drivers. I'm lucky that I already knew what LVM is.
 
Ah... I don't really print much and don't have a Brother printer, so I can't help beyond that link.
 
Stock Debian is not user friendly but if you must have a Debian biased distribution Linux Mint Debian Edition is best for you
 
"Stock Debian is not user friendly but if you must have a Debian biased distribution Linux Mint Debian Edition is best for you"

That's what I'd tell other people after installing my first Debian system. I doubt the scanner will work since Brother doesn't provide Linux drivers for it.
 
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I legit like LMDE. I have it on bare metal for one of my testing boxes. On that one, I only use the daily Lubuntu betas in a VM.
 

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