# Main > General Discussion >  Warning about HP Laptops - incompatibility with Win 10 Creators Update

## Mouse

Hi Everyone  :Smile: 

I have a problem with my HP Pavilion 15 Notebook laptop (which is only 3 years old) not being compatible with Win 10 Creators Update, and I wanted to make other HP laptop users aware of the issue.

My computer is slow, prone to 'hanging' and many of my graphics apps freeze, take ages to save, and crash when attempting gradient fills, drop shadows and blurs.  My browser continually crashes - especially when I have another app running in the background.  In short, the whole experience has become a bit of a nightmare.

I initially thought this might be due to lack of RAM (I have 4GB RAM), but a 5 minute search on my Product ID code took me to this forum question, and it seems that the architecture of my notebook is very likely to be incompatible with WIN 10 Creator's Update, since my product code is only 2 end digits different to the example in that thread.

So to all you others with this particular model of HP Laptop out there - be very careful if you are still only _considering_ updating from Win 7 or 8 to Win 10.

*Please don't do it unless your machine is listed here as having been checked and found to be compatible.*

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## Greg

I've never had a HP laptop myself, but thanks for the warning Mouse!

A friend of mine had one (not the same as yours), and her Wacom tablet was always glitching out with it, though I know their drivers can be a bit iffy sometimes anyway so it might not have been completely the laptop's fault!

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## Mouse

If your friend's Wacom isn't working properly, then it is most likely to be the driver.  Driver updates are available on the Wacom website, and if its not obvious which one is the one intended for her particular model, there's a very good live chat service.  That's how I remedied my own Wacom problems.

I cannot speak for your friend, since you haven't said if this was related to the Creator's Update or not, but my own Wacom problems were actually caused by the Creator's Update corrupting my Wacom driver.

There are other drivers on my system which have also been damaged by the Creator's Update. I am still trying to track them down and uninstall/reinstall things as I go.  It's not easy when there is more than one thing wrong to work out what exactly is being caused by what.

Needless to say - I have an extreeeeeeeeeeemly low opinion of Microsoft right now, and I'm not likely to forgive them.  My next machine is quite likely to be a Mac.

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## Falconius

Ah, Microsoft, ever shooting its customers in the foot.  Even if it wasn't a problem with other things the RAM issue is relevant, my system right now doing practically nothing, is using 3 GB of the stuff.  Without the browser it's 'only' using 2.3.  With only 4 GB that leaves very little room for an RAM intensive application (ie any visual creation app) to work with.

My Wacom was also affected by a windows update, I had to reinstall it from scratch (and even more annoyingly redo all the tablet settings because the backup save file of them was either corrupted or not compatible).

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## Mouse

Microsoft killed my laptop, but I shot myself in the foot when I attempted to free up wasted disc space to see if that would improve the situation (the disc was 3/4 full) and ended up accidentally cleaning up all the previous versions of Windows.  So now I can't roll back to Win 8.1, which is what this machine was when I bought it.

I'm stuck with it now, and since my financial resources are extremely small I wont be wasting money increasing the RAM on this one.  I'd rather add that money to the cost of buying a Mac.

Here is a partial list of the graphics apps I have and whether they have been affected by Creators Update:

GIMP - unstable/unusable for large files, and no longer works with Wacom pen dynamics
Krita - mind-numbingly slow and crashy, but still works well with pen dynamics
CC3+ - not affected, as far as I've used it only a couple of times since the update
Genetica - not affected
Sketchup - not affected
Blender - not affected
Vue - unusable

Other apps:

All browsers - variously unstable (including Edge)

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## Tonnichiwa

Oh man, I'm sorry to hear about this Sue. I hated having to switch to windows 10 because microsoft stopped supporting and licensing/producing Movie Maker, the program I was using to edit the video's I was making for my youtube channel. I've tried various other programs that are compatible with Windows 10 but most of them do stupid things like put a watermark on your video, or they are too complicated for what I want to do. I haven't been able to find anything good so I haven't been able to make any more videos. 

Back when I used to build computers for a living, I used to HATE HP computers because they used to make all of their parts proprietary. This meant you had to buy any upgrade parts or replacement parts directly from them, not after market sellers. And of course they over priced their parts by quite a bit.

Hopefully you will be able to get your Mac soon so you can put all of this behind you.

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## Falconius

> I haven't been able to find anything good so I haven't been able to make any more videos.


Have you tried using Lightworks?  They used to have a free version (which if I recall limited the codecs and resolutions you could render to), not sure if they have that any more.




> I'd rather add that money to the cost of buying a Mac.


I agree, it is a much better use of the money than buying RAM for the current machine.

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## Tonnichiwa

I looked into it but the free version didn't have some of the editing things I need, being able to record and upload to youtube in mp4 being one of them.

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## Mouse

Thanks Tony  :Smile: 

That's seriously bad news about your videos.  You were making a fine collection.  I really hope you can find an alternative soon.  Don't give up looking  :Smile: 

I can still map - just about, but not as large scale as before.  Everything takes such a looooooong time to do now, and I'm making so many cups of coffee waiting for save operations in Krita that I risk becoming a caffeine addict!  LOL!  Save takes up to 20 minutes, but I have to do it before I try anything really dangerous - like a drop shadow, a blur, or a gradient fill.  I've had to switch autosave off.  I discovered that autosave can tie things up for about 45 minutes.  And I really do mean tie things up.  All other apps that are open when a Krita autosave starts automatically crash, and you can't minimise Krita to do other stuff.  It just sits there - apparently frozen.  It _does_  eventually do its job and come to an end.  You've just got to be patient... and drink a helluva lot of coffee!

Although I've thought about it in the past I'm really glad now that I never took on any commissions.  If I had any clients relying on me to get things done within a time limit right now I'd be in a horrible mess - letting people down all over the place.

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## Tonnichiwa

Coffee? And here I thought you brits only drank tea!   :Smile: 

Thats what I used to hate about my old computer. It would do that whenever I tried to make a map larger than 6000 × 6000.

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## Mouse

I actually don't like tea at all - unless its lemon and ginger  :Wink: 

I can no longer open most of my older maps.  They are simply too large.  Since the Creator's Update I have only been able to make maps of a much smaller size.  My last Challenge entry was really pushing the boundaries.

Krita can't handle files as large as GIMP can, and since I've more or less lost GIMP I'm down to about that size myself.

No more 10,000 x 10,000 city maps like Merelan City, I'm afraid.  Not until I get a new computer.  CC3 can do it, but I can't open the resulting jpeg export!

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## Mark Oliva

Just to be fair to Microsoft ...

The company announced this issue two months before the new update was released and sent it out in news releases to all the standard media.  Among other places, this was published in articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian in London and the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany, to name doubtless but a few.  It also was in our smaller local newspaper, Fränkischer Tag in Bamberg.  Those are the articles that I read personally.

There are things that Windows 10 Fall Creator Edition can do that some (and not all) HP laptops can't handle.  Microsoft made the decision to include these elements and exclude the HP laptops.  Good decision?  Bad decision?  Y'all can have your own opinion on that.

However ... I can't imagine how Microsoft could have been more fair in warning about its decision.  And those who have sensible settings on their Windows 10 computers have the ability to reject the update before it starts.  So ... I can't see this as being a typical Microsoft run-over-the-customer operation, but rather, one that was handled rather well.  Nice for a change!

Servus,

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## selden

It'd be nice if they included incompatibility warnings in the installer software itself, giving the person doing the installation/upgrade the option of terminating the process.

Unfortunately, as with any event which causes the loss of the system disk, often the only thing that can help to recover from such a situation is to perform full system backups to external media as often as you can.

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## Mouse

I agree Selden.

Just to be clear - Win 10 worked _perfectly_ on my laptop and I was very pleased with it in the beginning.  

Its the Creator's Update that doesn't work.

News about the incompatibility problems may have been everywhere else, but I never saw it.  What's more, I don't generally expect a publisher like MS to even _try_ to install an update that simply isn't compatible with my machine.  They know my system specs.  The update should never even have been sent to me, but it was - automatically downloaded and installed by the OS.

I wasn't given a choice in the matter.

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## Straf

@Mouse - have you tried a fresh install by downloading the slipstreamed version of Windows 10 Creators Update from their website and making installation media? You'll need a 8GB memory stick or a dual layer DVD. The problem with the update was it was changing a lot of stuff such as system files in the background. It was like stripping down and rebuilding the engine of a car as the car was running. Perhaps putting a fresh engine in might help?

Also @Mouse - I still think it's possible to downgrade to 8.1 by downloading it from the MS website. Again you'll have to put it onto some sort of installation media.

@Tonnichiwa - here's a list of video editing software for you to check out:

Avidemux
LiVES
Open Shot
Pitivi
Shotcut
VideoPad

There are a few others that seem to have been abandoned/discontinued. I haven't done any video editing on Windows for a long time so I can't offer any advice on any of them. You'll have to do your own research on features and that. I know when I was editing video I was using more than one application. I use one to cut the scenes/clips out of the main sequence then another to put them together with the effects I wanted (fades, etc.) This was the same thing as I did on Linux as well but there's a much wider range of products available on Linux. Another thing is you might want to check out some converters too, for going from one CODEC to another.

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## Mark Oliva

I get a lot more excited about companies that continue to make software that isn't up to using my machines.  I mean specifically Battlemap Games, which is making MapForge, and ProFantasy, which makes CC3+.  They still are unable to move away from antiquated 32-bit software in the era of 64-bit computers, which, of course, can address only 4 MB of memory, making it impossible to make some of the big maps that people here would like to make.  For the present, my own mapping software, FM8, is a part of this group too, but I do understand that NBOS is working on FM9 and that a 64-bit version is planned.

For a long time, Microsoft had a track record of dumping out products that didn't work here, there and somewhere and not saying a word about it.  A lot of us complained about it.  This time, Microsoft issued a warning to HP owners two months ahead of time via the mass media.  More Microsoft bashing in this case seems to me to be pointless.  It can lead to no positive end whatsoever.

Of course, once can go to a Mac.  Then one can trade Windows problems for Mac problems, with which I became rather familiar when working with the official ProFantasy beta testers.

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## Falconius

Or, you can trade them both for Linux problems.  No OS is perfect.  I remember using Mac's at my university in the days where the blue screen of death was a common complaint about Windows, I always had more issues with the Mac's than I did with windows.  No they didn't have a big blue screen of death, they just dropped the program dead with no warning, or they went into an endless rainbow cursor loop and you had to restart the computer yourself.  That combined with other issues (hardware price and lack of options), turned me away from Macs, and I've never had reason to regret it.  You can still build a hugely powerful PC for the same price you'd pay for a moderately performing Mac.  Linux on the other hand I've had little experience with, but it has gotten a lot more friendly since the last time I tried it out.  It seems to me like the most viable alternative.

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## Straf

> @Tonnichiwa - here's a list of video editing software for you to check out:
> 
> Avidemux
> LiVES
> Open Shot
> Pitivi
> Shotcut
> 
> There are a few others that seem to have been abandoned/discontinued. I haven't done any video editing on Windows for a long time so I can't offer any advice on any of them. You'll have to do your own research on features and that. I know when I was editing video I was using more than one application. I use one to cut the scenes/clips out of the main sequence then another to put them together with the effects I wanted (fades, etc.) This was the same thing as I did on Linux as well but there's a much wider range of products available on Linux. Another thing is you might want to check out some converters too, for going from one CODEC to another.


Oh I forgot to add - Blender can also be used to edit video but I tried to follow a tutorial on it and gave up.

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## Falconius

> Oh I forgot to add - Blender can also be used to edit video but I tried to follow a tutorial on it and gave up.


That sounds more like a nightmare than it does a useful tool.  :Razz:   Ah, I love Blender.

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## Mouse

Thanks Straf  :Smile: 

I'm going to leave everything exactly as is for now.  It might be slow and very irritating, but at least it is still functioning.  I don't want to change anything in case it just gets worse, since I only have this one computer.

I'll save up for my Mac, and I'll try not to worry about the potential for another even more deadly Win 10 update happening before I get enough money together to jump ship away from all this chaos.

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## ThomasR

Sharing my experience.

I forsook Microsoft about ten years ago. I was tired of wiping my hard drive and having a clean install every two month.

Macs are easy machines to work with IF you do not do fancy stuff. Many programs cannot be run on Macs but you still can with OS emulators and such. 

My machine is a Macbook Air with 8 GB of RAM and, while I have had next to no crashing problems, it's starting to not be enough when my browser and Photoshop are running at the same time and let's be honest, the web is a reference source we use pretty often. The problem is that Apple builds machines that are hardly tweakable. If you want to upgrade the RAM, for example, it's pretty hard as every piece of hardware is glued or soldered AND sometimes, the highest and newest RAM chips are not supported by your machine (I know it can be changed but that's a hazardous procedure that requires finesse and knowledge). These days, 16 GB is the top you can get on a laptop on Macs. Another problem is the graphic chip which is, at least on my beast, 8hitty. MacBooks Pro have better ones and retina screen.

Just know that Macs are not the cure to everything. I'll add one thing, I haven't updated my OS for 4 years as I still want to keep a bit of available RAM for my softwares ... Were I a bit courageous, I'd go for Linux but I decided I never wanted to learn more computer knowledge than was strictly necessary. Apple is a good middle ground for me.

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## Mouse

The trouble, as I see it, with Microsoft is that they are TOO dynamic.  Some bright young thing has a marvellous new idea, and they all jump on the band wagon and away they go.  No one even stops to think about whether the most inspiring or impressive flash of inspiration is necessarily the BEST idea for ALL their users!

I've had a belly full of it now.  They're quite welcome to go prancing off on the next new thing to occur to them.  I just don't want to be a prisoner of theirs any more.

So - Linux... anyone willing to enlighten me about the pros and cons of Linux?  What machine specs are necessary?  How difficult is it to use GIMP, Krita, CC3+ etc on Linux?  Is it even possible to convert an HP Laptop designed for Windows 8.1 to Linux?

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## Straf

Mouse an off-the-shelf HP laptop will almost certainly run Linux. You can check this database to see if your hardware is specifically guaranteed to run Ubuntu, for example. Ubuntu is one of many different distributions of Linux. DistroWatch have a rundown on the top distributions. Ubuntu is pretty easy for Windows users to get on with, but many people are now moving over to Mint. 

If you're not sure about it you can download an iso file and create a bootable CD/DVD or memory stick to boot from. There's an option to boot into it but not install it, just to have a wee bit explore. You'll see how it interacts with your machine then.

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## ChickPea

Gimp, Krita, Inkscape and Blender you'll have no problems with on Linux.  I find Inkscape works better on Linux than it does in Windows. Haven't  noticed much difference with Gimp, except it starts much faster in  Linux, but that's a minor issue. 

Where you might have problems  are with Windows only programs. You can often get Windows software to  run in Linux using a piece of software called WINE, but not every app  will work. Sometimes they get it working at some point down the road,  but sometimes it never works. They 'grade' Windows apps from 'Platinum'  (very good) down to garbage. It looks like CC3+ works well. They run a database here and you can search for your individual programs.

The  biggest issue you might run into is getting Linux to install. Now, to  be clear, the installation itself is very simple and straightforward,  however laptops can be locked down with Microsoft's Secure Boot feature.  I bought a Lenovo laptop a few months back, and it was a bit of a  palaver to get Ubuntu installed, even though I've installed Linux a  gazillion times and I knew what I was doing. I had to disable stuff in  the BIOS, which wasn't difficult, but they made it hard to get into the  BIOS in the first place. I usually build my own PCs and I think  motherboards aimed at self-builders are much easier to work with.  However, there were plenty of help articles and it wasn't too hard to  figure out, but it was a little bit complicated if you're not sure what  you're doing. Every manufacturer does things differently and, even with  Lenovo, apparently some models were super easy to install Linux, and  some more difficult. I'd do a bit of googling before you dive in.

Most  people dual boot with Windows & Linux. The Linux installer will  partition off an area on your hard drive and install itself there. When  you turn on your machine, you'll get a little menu showing all installed  OS's and you pick the one you want. One thing I should point out...  when you install Linux, it installs its own bootloader (the piece of  software that starts up the operating system). It has to do this because  Windows won't recognise other OS's. This means if you ever decide to  nuke Linux, you will have to run the Windows 'repair' program, as  Windows won't start otherwise. There are many help forums filled with  questions from people who have installed Linux, then decided to wipe the  partition, and suddenly their machine won't start. It would be wise to  create a Windows backup disc before you do anything, just in case...! 

Should  mention also, if you're considering a mac, that you'd have the same  issues where not every piece of software is available. Additionally, not  every company will allow a licence to be transferred from one platform  to another. It's possible you may need to repurchase if you can't get  something to run via other means.

There is a piece of (free)  software called Virtual Box. It's an emulator, and allows you run other  OSs from Windows. However, you might struggle with this as it can be a  little more demanding on system resources (i.e. you're running Windows,  which is running Virtual Box, which is running a Linux OS, which is  running Krita....!) However, trying VB would at least allow you to  familiarise yourself with a Linux OS, and how it installs etc. Might be  worth a look.

Finally, I'm sorry you're having woes (again!) I do  think Straf's advice to try a clean install is wise. Windows is  notorious for not cleaning out its registry as people add and remove  software, so it's certainly possible that some leftover bits and pieces  from Windows 8/earlier versions of Windows 10 are exacerbating problems.  But, I can also appreciate the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'  approach too!  :Smile:

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## Falconius

Yeah, definitely look them up on distrowatch, and try and find a couple of videos reviews on the one's you are intrested in.  The one that looked really nice to me and my tastes was Ubuntu Budgie, haven't tried it out yet though (the intention is to put it on my old machine, because there is no way in hell I'd pay 120 dollars for another windows key).

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## Mouse

Thank you, Straf  :Smile: 

I will most definitely have a good read and maybe a play, if I can find my memory stick.

I was just browsing around a bit and found this.

I know you are on Linux (or were, until you had issues with your PC), and I also remember you had the odd issue with GIMP.  Any thoughts?

EDIT: OMG!  double ninjad by ChickPea and Falconius!   :Razz: 

I'll read your comments a bit closer before I respond  :Wink:

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## ChickPea

> Yeah, definitely look them up on distrowatch, and try and find a couple of videos reviews on the one's you are intrested in.  The one that looked really nice to me and my tastes was Ubuntu Budgie, haven't tried it out yet though (the intention is to put it on my old machine, because there is no way in hell I'd pay 120 dollars for another windows key).



I'm interested in Budgie too, but to be honest, I wouldn't recommend it  for a new user right now. It's still relatively experimental and I've  read that there are still a lot of issues to be ironed out. It's  definitely one to consider for the future though.

For a brand new  Linux user, I wouldn't consider anything other than Ubuntu (or Ubuntu  derivative) or Mint. My personal recommendation would be Xubuntu. It's  relatively light-weight and the interface will be familiar to a Windows  user. If you want to go really light-weight, there's Lubuntu.

The  reason I suggest an Ubuntu base system, is that there's so much help  out there for the questions that a new user will inevitably have. Once  you've got a couple of months usage under your belt, you can look around  at other distros then, but I think it's just easier to start with the  most common Linux to gain experience.

I've been using KDE Neon  (based on ubuntu 16.04) and I'm loving it. I've tried various KDEs off  and on for years and I don't think I ever lasted more than a week with  any of them. I kept reading good things about Neon and it was supposed  to be very snappy, so I installed it earlier this year and I haven't  looked back. I'm really pleased with it.

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## Mouse

My oh my!  ChickPea!  I had no idea you were so 'into' all the hardware stuff - enough to build your own  :Smile: 

I'm practically useless that way!

As it stands, the laptop needs to be taken apart for a thorough clean (I did a sort of amateur job on it a few months ago by taking the back off it and using a can of compressed air, but I wasn't brave enough to undo the screws that were holding everything together inside the machine), so I might just ask for a bit of help when I take it down to the local repair shop to have that done - help that includes me being shown how to install whichever build of Linux seems best.

LOL!  I get quite irritated with my own lack of courage, but since this is the only PC I have, and I won't be able to get hold of another one for quite some time, I feel I really need someone to be watching over my shoulder and shouting stuff like "No! Don't touch that!!!" or, "Yes, that's the one I meant!"

In the meantime though, I will do as Straf and Falconius suggest and walk around this thing several times till I'm happy that I really understand what I'm about to do  :Smile:

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## Non Serviam

I've been a Linux user for years and I've never had any trouble with the GIMP at all.  I suggest Linux Mint as the best flavour for someone coming from Windows.

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## Mouse

Thank you, Non Serviam - that's good to know  :Smile: 

Thank you - all of you, for your advice and suggestions about Linux.  I'm very grateful for all your help and support  :Smile:

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## Mark Oliva

> Or, you can trade them both for Linux problems.  No OS is perfect..


How true!  Who has the biggest problems?  Windows users?  Mac users?  LINUX users?  Who knows?  However, regardless of which OS one prefers, users of Windows programs such as CC3+ and FM8 will do themselves no favors by switching to a Mac or a LINUX system.  FM8 users seem to get along fairly well with Windows emulations on a Mac.  (There's no guarantee that'll be true with FM9, however.)  It's quite a different matter with a Mac running a Windows emulation and CC3+.  I worked with the Mac users on ProFantasy's official beta testers roster, and even with some refined workarounds, there are some things in CC3+ that just don't work.

But the OS is only one problem.  Another problem is the tendency of a few brand-name computer manufacturers to design machines and BIOS systems that don't comply fully with the OS manufacturer's standards.  Instead of doing that, they want to build a better mouse trap and then flop when a new kind of mouse comes around.  Here in Germany, Siemens PCs in the late 1980s and early 1990s were delivered with Siemens' own tailor-made version of MS-DOS.  Where the original MS-DOS was installed from a single floppy disc, the Siemens version came on three floppies.  When Microsoft updated original MS-DOS 3.0 to 3.1, the Siemens BIOS wouldn't boot Microsoft 3.1 and there was no Siemens 3.1.  Stick with 3.0, Siemens said.  Nice, except that the current versions of some popular software programs that were released after the introduction of MS-DOS 3.1 wouldn't run on Siemens 3.0, although they ran on Microsoft 3.0.  When MS-DOS 4.0 came out, the same thing happened all over again.  (Siemens has been out of the PC business for some time now.)

In the particular case in question in this thread, the computer that had the problems came from HP.  HP and Dell are two companies that also are known for brewing their own beer on Windows PCs and then becoming somewhat incompatible when either Windows itself or a 3rd party Windows program updates.  After that, the new version either doesn't run quite right or not at all.  After HP acquired Compaq, there were some i486 Compaq models that couldn't manage  memory right anymore and crashed constantly after updating to Windows 95.  The customer had only two choices: Go back to Windows 3.1 or go to the more expensive Windows NT 4.0.  HP never fixed this.

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## Mark Oliva

> I've been a Linux user for years and I've never had any trouble with the GIMP at all.  I suggest Linux Mint as the best flavour for someone coming from Windows.


I don't use LINUX, but my son (a professional programmer) does, and he certainly would agree with you 100%.  However, there are a number of issues CC3+ users will have with LINUX Windows emulations, although CC3+ will run there.

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## Straf

WINE Is Not an Emulator!  :Wink:

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## Ilanthar

@ChicKPea & Falconius : Would you recomend Ubuntu Budgie? I downloaded Ubuntu 16.04 and I have previous experiences with Mint... But well, I havn't installed Linux yet (I can't figure out how to boot on the USB Key, it's a mystery...), therefore, I can change.

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## Falconius

As I said, I have no experience with it or with any recent distro, it's just the one that really caught my fancy.  Chickpea recommended avoiding it due to technical issues and user friendliness and just sticking with a mainstream Ubuntu distro for ease of transition.

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## J.Edward

Maybe CP can answer for this or any other Linux user...
so, if you are running Linux, could you run some sort of android emulator?
And if so, then run apps from the android store?
Thus, you could run sketchbook pro and photoshop and some others.
It wouldn't be quite the same as the full app experience, but might suffice for some.
And it would conceivably be super cheap by comparison.

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## Mark Oliva

> WINE Is Not an Emulator!


That's quite correct.  Did someone say that it is?  I didn't see that.  However, according to the beta testers, it also has issues with CC3+

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## Straf

> Maybe CP can answer for this or any other Linux user...
> so, if you are running Linux, could you run some sort of android emulator?
> And if so, then run apps from the android store?
> Thus, you could run sketchbook pro and photoshop and some others.
> It wouldn't be quite the same as the full app experience, but might suffice for some.
> And it would conceivably be super cheap by comparison.


Have a look at Anbox. Is that the sort of thing you were looking for?

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## Straf

> That's quite correct.  Did someone say that it is?  I didn't see that.  However, according to the beta testers, it also has issues with CC3+


I'm being pedantic. I don't think any of the Windows 'emulators' for Linux are true emulators. They're application compatibility layers. They parse the incoming system calls from an application and translate them into the native machine's kernel code's system calls. An emulator is some software that mimics an instruction set from, say, a CPU, in order to run software. It's like machine within a machine. Then there's virtualisation which is like an operating system within an operating system. If Venn diagrams were drawing I'd say there'd be a few unions within them though.

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## ChickPea

OK, yes, I stand corrected. Wine is not an emulator. Just trying to explain simply to a non-techie.  :Smile: 

About Budgie, I want to be clear that I haven't tried it. I considered it earlier this year (or maybe this time last year, I can't quite recall). At that time, there were reports of so many little bugs and issues, and it put me off. However... when a project is very active, as Budgie is, development is fast and it possibly has come a long way in the last nine months or so. It looks fantastic and I was quite enthused about it, but I have the feeling there was a killer bug that stopped me. It might have been a hardware issue. I can't quite remember now. One of these days I will try it...

If you have some experience with Linux, then go for whatever distro takes your fancy. However, if you're completely new, and have never even tried it, then I feel it's best to go for something super popular, because you're likely going to need help. The Mint and Ubuntu forums are friendly places, used to dealing with new users' questions. You can ask what you suspect might be an idiot question, without worrying about receiving a RTFM answer.

Ilanthar, I suspect you're running into the UEFI/Secure Boot issue. Maybe this article will help?

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## Mouse

I have such knowledgeable friends  :Smile: 

And you're right, ChickPea - I'm not really understanding all that much right now.  A new-to-me idea needs a day or two to take root in my thoughts before I properly get to grips with it  :Wink: 

EDIT: Ilanthar, if the machine you are thinking of possibly converting is your old HP Pavilion that started having problems like mine, then the chances are that whatever problems you are having when you look at trying Linux will also affect me, so I would be very interested in hearing about it - if that's what you're doing  :Smile:

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## Straf

Didn't you say your laptop was originally 8.1 Mouse? I think the Secure Boot version that shipped with Windows 8 can be disabled quite easily.

----------


## Mouse

Yes it was.  And thanks - that's reassuring to know.

I'm going to watch a few of those videos, and then see about creating a bootable stick like you suggested before, so I can try it and see if it works with my hardware.

----------


## J.Edward

> Have a look at Anbox. Is that the sort of thing you were looking for?


It wasn't for me... I was asking for a friend, yeah, for a friend.  :Razz: 
Hehe. I have too much money tide up in commercial software to go Linux myself, I'm afraid.
I have run a few versions over the years on a few old pcs. I liked it.
I'd use it if I could use all the costly software I have.

I may have to at some point, as I am unwilling to allow an OS to tell me when and what to update, as win10 does.
I am equal opportunity though  :Wink:  - 
there are things I like about all the OSes, and things I hate about all of them. 
And particularly with the corporate entities. Nuff said.

Thanks for the link though, as I hadn't run into that before.

----------


## Ilanthar

@ ChickPea : Well, I'm pretty sure I disabled the secure boot. I have 2 problems : I need to borrow a wired keyboard to access the bios setup AND when I'm here, I change the boot order for my USB Key with Ubuntu, but nothing happens, it keep loading Windows...
But I'm gonna have a look on your link in case I miss something, so thanks for that. Plus, I'm gonna call someone that knows better than me, so it should be solved sooner or later.

@Mouse : sorry but no, I intend to install a dual boot Win/Linux on my new computer.

Edit : sniped by J.Ed ! Well, I'm keeping Windows for some softwares too... And intend to use Linux for the rest.

----------


## Mouse

Why won't some software publishers allow you to transfer licenses between OS's?  

Which ones are they (if anyone happens to know)?

I don't use PS or Corel.

EDIT: You ninja'd me, Ilanthar!  :Razz: 

I have a bit of a thing about cool keyboards - being a touch typist.  The irony here is that I have no less than 5 different fully functional wired keyboards.  If only we lived close enough I could loan you a couple!

----------


## Straf

> It wasn't for me... I was asking for a friend, yeah, for a friend. 
> Hehe. I have too much money tide up in commercial software to go Linux myself, I'm afraid.
> I have run a few versions over the years on a few old pcs. I liked it.
> I'd use it if I could use all the costly software I have.
> 
> I may have to at some point, as I am unwilling to allow an OS to tell me when and what to update, as win10 does.
> I am equal opportunity though  - 
> there are things I like about all the OSes, and things I hate about all of them. 
> And particularly with the corporate entities. Nuff said.
> ...


Nee bother bonny lad  :Very Happy:  There's Android Studio as well but I can't remember if it emulates various devices or not. I've always plugged my device in to run apps I've written. (I haven't got any further than getting my phone to tell me to eff off.) I don't know if it will run apps from the Play Store - that's the other thing, being able to download from the Play Store. I'm assuming Anbox does that.

----------


## Straf

> Why won't some software publishers allow you to transfer licenses between OS's?  
> 
> Which ones are they (if anyone happens to know)?
> 
> I don't use PS or Corel.


It's purely down to £££ Mouse. I was once buying a laptop from one of the Dixons Group of shops and the assistant was trying the hard sell on all the various garbage they try to pile on you. I kept refusing and when he got to Office I said I already have it. He said "It's non-transferable so you can't install it on this" I looked him in the eye and just said "You're going to try to stop me are you?" The look on his face  :Very Happy:  Anyway eventually he got the message that I wasn't interested in any of the other stuff. It comes bundled with enough crap as it is.

Anyway some software licences do transfer but I don't have that much proprietary software. In fact I have none at all that I use these days so I don't know what licences will transfer. Oh I have XChat for Windows, but it doesn't require a paid for licence for Linux. I use Libre Office for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. R or PSPP for statistics when I need it but I haven't had to analyse any large datasets for a number of years. There seem to be open source alternatives for a lot of software.

----------


## Mouse

That's interesting.  Thank you!  :Razz: 

I've just been reading about Ubuntu, and was really pleased to find a list of familiar apps - including GIMP and Krita.  I did however notice that the version of Krita was 2.6.2, which never worked very well.  Is it like that for all the apps?  I mean - are they all a few versions behind what you can use in Windows?

----------


## Falconius

If the company sells versions of the same software for a different OS they will often charge a fee for opening it up on more than one OS.  For instance 3D Coat has a package for all three, Windows, Mac, and Linux, and they charge another 40 bucks to add another OS to your key.  Pixologic makes Zbrush for both Mac and PC, they charge half price to gain a second license for a different OS (ie 400 bucks (ie holy hell just buy another computer instead  :Razz: )).  Zbrush, though I don't even own a full version of it, is the reason I want to stick to Windows (since it is something I'm am working towards owning).  I'd say if there is no program tying you to an OS, then go for the LINUX version and get familiar with it.  As far as I'm aware all the major open source programs like Krita or Blender, have a Linux version.

----------


## Mouse

Thanks, Falconius  :Smile: 

Most of my software is free - GIMP, Krita, and I believe (though I will have to check to be sure) that I will be ok using my CC3+ and its add ons without having to buy another licence for Linux.  

I shall have to go and ask over at the PF forum and see  :Smile:

----------


## selden

> That's interesting.  Thank you! 
> 
> I've just been reading about Ubuntu, and was really pleased to find a list of familiar apps - including GIMP and Krita.  I did however notice that the version of Krita was 2.6.2, which never worked very well.  Is it like that for all the apps?  I mean - are they all a few versions behind what you can use in Windows?


It depends on how the development is done. Some projects have very small development teams, perhaps involving only a single individual. The software gets built for one particular environment and then someone else ports it to another O/S when they get around to it. Some projects have enough people and equipment involved that the software can be built and tested under multiple platforms simultaneously.

----------


## Mouse

All this is so very new to me.  I'm only really getting about half what you are saying, but I'll get there in the end.

Thanks Selden  :Smile:

----------


## ChickPea

About transferring apps between platforms, I mention this because I've being using Affinity Designer recently, and I was browsing their forums and noticed a few people asking about about transferring between Mac & Windows.. The problem arises because Affinity Designer & Photo are sold through Apple's store, and not from Affinity themselves. Therefore, you're buying from Apple who share limited customer details, so Affinity aren't able to confirm the person's identity (so they said). I think there's some other legalese/licensing restrictions too, but that was the gist of it. 

I'm sure I recall reading somewhere that Adobe allows the licence to be transferred between platforms, but I'm not up to date on their current policies. Anyway, it's just something to keep an eye on for anyone considering swapping platforms.

Mouse, about the version of Krita with Ubuntu, that can be updated if you choose. There are tools that will allow you to update to the newest version.

EDIT: I should ask, were you looking at Ubuntu 16.04 (a long term support release) or the newer 17.10 version (which is only supported for 9 months I think)

EDIT2: About Krita again, I just checked my machine and I'm running version 3.3.1, so 2.6 sounds quite old.

----------


## Mouse

LOL!

I don't know what I'm doing, ChickPea...

(Clueless me)

There seem to be millions of different versions of everything, and I'm just a bit confused.

Is it better to get one of the versions that you have to update every 9 months?

And yes - I think I was looking at 16.04.

All I want right now is to choose a version of something to download so I can make a boot thing on a memory stick and see what happens when I boot from it - see what its really like to actually use Linux.

----------


## Falconius

> I'm sure I recall reading somewhere that Adobe allows the licence to be transferred between platforms, but I'm not up to date on their current policies. Anyway, it's just something to keep an eye on for anyone considering swapping platforms.


Pretty sure that Adobe doesn't support Linux anymore (I think they used to a long time ago?), so again you're stuck with either Mac OS or Windows.

----------


## Mouse

Is that why some people have two platforms on their PC, like Ilanthar is doing?

(sorry about the silly questions)

----------


## ChickPea

You're hardly clueless, Mouse! This is all new territory. Man, I remember the first time I installed Linux on my own (this would have been 200 :Cool: . I was terrified in case I broke the computer beyond all repair. 

There are pros and cons to both 16.04 and 17.10. Version 16.04 has been out for well over 18 months and should be very stable. It's supported till 2021 so no problems there. I usually stick with LTS versions these days. However... there's a new LTS version due in April 2018, and I would likely upgrade within a few weeks of that. So, right now, I'd probably go for 17.10 because I know I'd be changing again in April/May next year (17.10 is supported till July 2018. But... the non-LTS versions can sometimes be a little less stable, however they do have newer apps and packages, sooo.... take your pick!

I know you don't have unlimited bandwidth, so it would probably be better to download the version you'd hope to run, and I don't think I'm helping you make your choice. Sorry! Probably 16.04 would be the best choice. You get the stability and it's usually pretty easy to update older packages. And if you like Linux, you can look to upgrade to the new LTS next spring, and you'll be more confident doing it then. So, yeah, go for 16.04!  :Very Happy: 

How you are installing it onto the USB? I think Ubuntu has a windows app for that.

----------


## ChickPea

> Pretty sure that Adobe doesn't support Linux anymore (I think they used to a long time ago?), so again you're stuck with either Mac OS or Windows.


Sorry, I was meaning transferring between Mac & Windows. I'm not sure if Adobe has ever officially supported Linux, though I believe some (probably older) versions of PS run just fine via WINE.

I think if Adobe did support Linux, there would be a not inconsiderable number of people who would swap platforms overnight. I noticed even in the Affinity forums, there were a number of people badgering the admins to offer up a Linux version (they said no, they didn't have the resources).

----------


## johnvanvliet

this is why i have what i have in my footer below this post

oops i was thinking of the wrong forum 
but i also have this in my email footer 

* " i do not pitch linux to my friends i let Microsoft do that for me "* 


Linux OS's do take a bit of research and one really should write out ( on paper with a pencil ) a outline for the install 

the " One click install "  idea is not really a good idea 

one really should learn to USE a computer  and software  not just "point and click" 

Once you get a basic understanding of HOW it works then YOU!!! can decide on how YOU WANT IT TO WORK FOR YOU 

and not have the OS dictate how you can use it or NOT use things 


on laptops the major issue is the MS windows requires the * Frankenstein's monster of the VERY good UEFI *  
--  Microsoft Windows Secure Boot ©™ --- 

MS can require that secure boot NOT to be able to be disabled

----------


## Falconius

> Sorry, I was meaning transferring between Mac & Windows. I'm not sure if Adobe has ever officially supported Linux, though I believe some (probably older) versions of PS run just fine via WINE.
> 
> I think if Adobe did support Linux, there would be a not inconsiderable number of people who would swap platforms overnight. I noticed even in the Affinity forums, there were a number of people badgering the admins to offer up a Linux version (they said no, they didn't have the resources).


The problem is OS distribution, and so it's a double edged sword.  Linux has about like one or two percent of the market if I recall, mac has what? 5% to 10% maybe?  The rest is Windows (of which I think 7 is the biggest by far, I think I recall it being like 54% of the overall market share, Windows 10 is down at Mac levels like 9-10%).   In other words it's not necessarily worthwhile to make Linux versions, or keep them up to date, but because of the lack of programs like these people don't move to Linux.

----------


## Mouse

I don't think I have any adobe software (apart from Reader) 

Ok - 16.04 it is - for my private little trial run anyway.

I have 20 GB per month, of which I usually use anything between 16 and 19 for other things, like downloading audiobooks and so on.  I can afford to download Linux versions maybe once or twice a month, maybe even 3 times - providing Microsoft don't go and throw another 5 GB update at me at the same time (that's why they've cost me so much, btw - the sheer size of the 'updates', which often fail to download properly and then start all over again the next time I start my machine).  

Like John, I want to be free of being force fed updates against my will.  I want to be in control of my machine, rather than at the mercy of its operating system, so Linux looks like the only real option, even if I do go and get a much bigger machine one day.  By that time I probably won't want to surrender my new freedom.

I'm not entirely sure I know how to make the boot stick.  Straf suggested it earlier.  I'll go back up the thread and have a look.  Something about ISO (presumably not isometric perspective).


I'll wait before I start downloading, in case I have to use a particular version to be able to do this boot stick.  I don't want to spend the evening downloading the wrong version in haste.

And, thanks ChickPea - it IS terrifying if all your life you've only ever used Windows from the moment you swapped an Atari for your very first home PC  :Smile: 


@Straf - how do I do this boot stick thing?


EDIT: ninjad twice again!

@Falconius - as long as I can use the relatively tiny selection of graphics apps I currently use in Windows, but in Linux instead, I'm so sick of the way things are with Win 10 and my machine that I'm prepared to put up with the lack of apps.  Windows is all so big and glitzy, but do I really even look at most of it?  

I use about 10 apps, and that's it.

Oh - btw.  Can you use Scrivener with Linux?

----------


## johnvanvliet

Scrivener 3 for apple or Scrivener 1.97 for windows 

for windows you WILL!!! need the windows registry part  ( the HKEY things and such) using regedit.exe 
- so you do not have to buy it again 
and copy it into the wine text file version of the ms registry  in the correct location 

i did this with games a long time ago 
the $ 20 to $30  games

however there are  equivalent or better programs 
i have NOT used these  so... 
have a look here 
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20...Novelists.html
and
https://itsfoss.com/open-source-tools-writers/

----------


## Mouse

Cool!  Looks like it could be fun just trying each of them out.

Thanks John  :Smile:

----------


## johnvanvliet

while we are so far off topic  
i tend to not like the derivative versions of the main distros 
Redhat - great for the office and servers 
( Cent and ScientificLinux are the free versions )
Fedora ?? this moves SO fast i do not recommend it to any person that dose NOT like to tinker with c  c++ , and python 2 and 3 code 
Debian -- great os 

for the debian tree  Mint and ubuntu 
Mint is the preferred 

OpenSUSE
SUSE dose it's own thing ,this is what i use along with Cent7 and ScientificLinux 6.8 

OpenSUSE is also VERY good for the new user and i do recommend this OS 
it is VERY GUI centric  a window gui tool for most things 

now back on topic 

what is your idea for the water ?
leave as is or a light blue saturation

----------


## Mouse

That's some interesting information - thank you John.

I'm not so sure there's any water in this thread?  :Smile:

----------


## johnvanvliet

oops i was thinking of your thread here
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=36803

----------


## Redrobes

My advice hasnt changed. I use Mint as its like Ubuntu but has a nicer desktop. I think Ubuntu got the message and has backtracked to some extent. Anyway thats by the by. I think Latest Mint with Cinnamon desktop is the easiest to get to grips with as a windows user. The download for it is:

https://linuxmint.com/download.php - pick the Cinnamon 64bit one. That takes you to the mirros list. The Uni of Kent one is usually pretty good. So the final link is this one:

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/w...amon-64bit.iso

Thats a link to the download of the 18.3 Cinnamon 64 bit ISO file which is the latest at this time of writing.

You need to write that to a DVD rom and boot from it or write it to a USB memory stick and boot from that.

This link:

https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/744

is the tutorial on how to do that. Scroll down a bit to "Using Microsoft Windows". I use Win32DiskImager but they have some other suggestions on how to write an ISO file to a memory stick. But here is the link to Win32DiskImager anyway:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

Once you have written the ISO file to your pen drive (which will completely erase everything else on it...) then it is like a bootable CD rom type deal. So you plug it into the machine and reboot it. If it reboots directly into windows bypassing any option to boot from the USB drive then you need to hit the BIOS and make sure that booting from USB stick is selected as an option and the option is higher prority than hard drive.

If you wrote the ISO to a writable DVD ROM disk then put the disk into the tray and reboot. Again, if the option never came up to boot from the DVD then hit the BIOS up a bit to make sure the DVD drive is selected as a boot option. Normally this is the case but normally booting from a USB pen stick is not the case.

If you get to the point of booting up your machine from the linux OS then you will have the option to try it out as a live session where nothing you do will be saved to the hard drive. The other option is to install it as the whole OS. If you do that then of course you can overwrite the windows completely. So obviously, try it in the live mode and see how you get on for a bit. You will probably find that Gimp is installed by default maybe Krita not so but once you have installed the OS for good then getting it is free and a cinch. And it will be the latest one since both Gimp, Krita, Blender etc all have Linux as the primary development OS.

BTW: Make sure you have essential files backed up to your external USB Hard drive before you start messing about with the machine or BIOS etc.

EDIT: Here is a nice quick 6min YouTube Vid of that process from irish guy who installs Mint 17.3 and uses an app called Rufus to write the ISO file to the memory stick but its the same thing as above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0gLlSIqKwU

----------


## Mouse

I'm having trouble with the Win 10 System shutting down my broadband when I click 'Post Quick Reply' (I told you it was nuts  :Razz:  ), so this won't be anything near as great as the first time I wrote it.  The comment didn't have time to autosave here on the Guild server...

Thanks Red  :Smile: 

Haven't got a stick/disc with nothing on it, so it may be a couple of days.  Really grateful for the explanation.  Just have two questions:



Do I have to download the file directly onto the stick/DVD, or can I download it onto my Windows Downloads folder and move it across when I get the stick/DVD? (That may be a couple of weeks)

If I get a stick how big does it need to be?

----------


## Straf

Redrobes has just about covered it all there. I can't vouch for Mint because I haven't used it but it's something I'm considering for the future.

Mouse I forgot to mention something about desktop environments. With Windows the user interface, the 'windows' bit is fixed. Apart from changing the appearance and applying themes everything is pretty much rigidly integrated into the OS. With basic Linux it's a command line OS and everything is tweakable. If you were so minded you could change things in the source code of the kernel, recompile it and use that instead. You can do that with anything that is open source. It might be convenient to think of it as layers. The kernel is the core, the base layer. The next layer is the other parts of the operating system, the environment, the various files and programs that do stuff behind the scenes. They ask the kernel permission to use memory, to access the interface, to add some things together, and the kernel orders the hardware to ruddy well get on with it. "Chop chop old chap" and all that.

The desktop environment is another layer designed to make the user experience more visual. It tells the operating system what things to change in files or in memory based on how the mouse has moved or what keys have been pressed. This is what things like Cinnamon are about - it's the desktop environment. There are a number of them available and you might encounter things such as Gnome, KDE and the default Ubuntu one called Unity. I've heard that Unity is going to be dropped by Canonical (the company who 'own' Ubuntu) and default back to Gnome. If you decide to choose Ubuntu over mint I'd probably recommend KDE but don't worry because you can choose to download Kubuntu which already has KDE integrated. 

Just for the sake of completion the desktop environment actually runs through something called X. That sets out the various protocols for how the desktop environment will behave so that it 'works'. How it looks and feels to the user is down to the individual environment. So X is another layer, just beneath the desktop. X also deals with the graphics drivers for the graphics card. Sometimes X may crash for some reason. It is possible to go to command line and shut it down and restart it without rebooting the PC. One of my favourite terminal commands is XKill - if something crashes and its window refuses to bugger off I open a terminal, type Xkill and the cursor turns into a X, then I click on the window of the offending program and poof! It's gone. Flashing green lights, thunder and a maniacal laugh are optional  :Wink: 

Anyway, there are quite a lot of tutorials around on preparing a USB drive for boot. I forgot to add what Redrobes mentioned though - setting a drive up to boot from will overwrite anything on there so make sure you have it backed up. Oh, and if you are running in 'live mode' (i.e. from USB) then you can opt to set up storage on the hard drive for your sessions or even on the USB drive. So when you shut down it isn't lost.

----------


## Straf

> I'm having trouble with the Win 10 System shutting down my broadband when I click 'Post Quick Reply' (I told you it was nuts  ), so this won't be anything near as great as the first time I wrote it.  The comment didn't have time to autosave here on the Guild server...
> 
> Thanks Red 
> 
> Haven't got a stick/disc with nothing on it, so it may be a couple of days.  Really grateful for the explanation.  Just have two questions:
> 
> 
> 
> Do I have to download the file directly onto the stick/DVD, or can I download it onto my Windows Downloads folder and move it across when I get the stick/DVD? (That may be a couple of weeks)
> ...


Yes, you download the ISO to your local hard disk, then use some software to set it up on the USB drive. I have Ubuntu on a 2GB USB drive. It looks as though it's pretty much full but I'm looking at it from Windows which isn't really able to read all the files on there properly. I'll try booting into it to see what I can fathom out.

----------


## Straf

Woah! I've just tried in vain to boot up from USB. I was able to access my BIOS last week but now I can't, it just gives me a blinking cursor in the top left. Does Windows 10 overwrite the firmware even on custom PCs to prevent other operating systems being installed? I tried using the BIOS bootloader and selected USB HDD but it just went straight into Windows.

I'm going to have to look into this. If the OS is tampering with the BIOS without permission then that is surely some sort of crime.

----------


## Greg

> If your friend's Wacom isn't working properly, then it is most likely to be the driver.  Driver updates are available on the Wacom website, and if its not obvious which one is the one intended for her particular model, there's a very good live chat service.  That's how I remedied my own Wacom problems.
> 
> I cannot speak for your friend, since you haven't said if this was related to the Creator's Update or not, but my own Wacom problems were actually caused by the Creator's Update corrupting my Wacom driver.
> 
> There are other drivers on my system which have also been damaged by the Creator's Update. I am still trying to track them down and uninstall/reinstall things as I go.  It's not easy when there is more than one thing wrong to work out what exactly is being caused by what.
> 
> Needless to say - I have an extreeeeeeeeeeemly low opinion of Microsoft right now, and I'm not likely to forgive them.  My next machine is quite likely to be a Mac.


WHOOAA, this thread expanded quickly!!

Yeah, it definitely was the drivers and after numerous trials and errors with the live chat people. It was sorted, but then decided to flip out every so often regardless and she'd have to repeat the process of uninstalling everything Wacom related and I have a feeling she even had to manually edit/delete one of the files that came along because of an incompatibility every time. Needless to say, it was a bit of a nightmare and one which I've never seen happen to anyone else. I know the drivers can glitch out from time to time, but they're usually pretty easy to fix.

I don't really have much to add to the actual topic over all the knowledgeable people on here, but I've been pretty fortunate with Windows and not really having any issues myself. It _does_ annoy me to no end how they try to force these updates on you and even when you say no 100 times, it decides to do it for you. I know some of my family have had issues running W10 on their older spec PC, which I've tried to help with, but after every update, something goes wrong or has changed something you didn't want changed.

Anyway, enough digressing, I hope you find a workaround for it all Mouse and it seems there's some great info and advice on this thread for it!  :Smile:

----------


## Falconius

> Woah! I've just tried in vain to boot up from USB. I was able to access my BIOS last week but now I can't, it just gives me a blinking cursor in the top left. Does Windows 10 overwrite the firmware even on custom PCs to prevent other operating systems being installed? I tried using the BIOS bootloader and selected USB HDD but it just went straight into Windows.
> 
> I'm going to have to look into this. If the OS is tampering with the BIOS without permission then that is surely some sort of crime.


I don't think so.  I have no trouble accessing the BIOS on my machine, but I also haven't played around with the boot order at all.  Windows does do something to tie the OS to the motherboard in order to keep track of licenses, but I don't know what that is.  I always assumed they got some sort of id number of the board and checked it against a central database when you go online, but maybe they do actually do something to the board.

Edit: maybe it is defaulting to windows after a failure of some sort?  Can you flash a stored copy of the bios to the board again?

----------


## Mouse

I do hope you aren't right about that, Straf, or I might as well throw this laptop in the bin if I can't use an alternative OS on it.

If the worst comes to the worst, and Windows really is behaving like a little Hitler with the hardware, how difficult would it be to re-format the hard drive and start from scratch without any trace of Windows?

Thanks for the information prior to that statement.  I'll still give it a go, just to see if I am also locked out of the BIOS.

----------


## Falconius

> I do hope you aren't right about that, Straf, or I might as well throw this laptop in the bin if I can't use an alternative OS on it.
> 
> If the worst comes to the worst, and Windows really is behaving like a little Hitler with the hardware, how difficult would it be to re-format the hard drive and start from scratch without any trace of Windows?
> 
> Thanks for the information prior to that statement.  I'll still give it a go, just to see if I am also locked out of the BIOS.


I think Straf is just being paranoid.  You can reformat through the BIOS if you need.  You really need to make sure you've got your files backed up.

----------


## Mouse

> WHOOAA, this thread expanded quickly!!
> 
> Yeah, it definitely was the drivers and after numerous trials and errors with the live chat people. It was sorted, but then decided to flip out every so often regardless and she'd have to repeat the process of uninstalling everything Wacom related and I have a feeling she even had to manually edit/delete one of the files that came along because of an incompatibility every time. Needless to say, it was a bit of a nightmare and one which I've never seen happen to anyone else. I know the drivers can glitch out from time to time, but they're usually pretty easy to fix.
> 
> I don't really have much to add to the actual topic over all the knowledgeable people on here, but I've been pretty fortunate with Windows and not really having any issues myself. It _does_ annoy me to no end how they try to force these updates on you and even when you say no 100 times, it decides to do it for you. I know some of my family have had issues running W10 on their older spec PC, which I've tried to help with, but after every update, something goes wrong or has changed something you didn't want changed.
> 
> Anyway, enough digressing, I hope you find a workaround for it all Mouse and it seems there's some great info and advice on this thread for it!


MS carry out numerous smaller updates in the background - any of which may be damaging the driver all over again.  You aren't informed that its happening, and even if you do catch it by noticing how much broadband its swallowing, there's no cancel button.  

You can limit them to a certain extent by switching your broadband information to 'metered broadband' in the settings, but even if you do that (as I have done), you eventually get messages telling you that an important security update needs your permission to download.  Once you click 'yes' to the important security update it doesn't just download that particular update, it downloads the whole backlog of updates that you were trying not to get.  You can't stop it.  It just.... 'is', and it won't let you defy it.

In some ways, having Win 10 is a bit like having your entire virtual world assimilated by the Borg.

----------


## Voolf

There was several ways to turn off the updates in win10 and the best is always to edit windows registry. I heard that with the anniversary update they "fixed" the registry so it does not work anymore if you have this update. I don't know myself i dont use Win10 yet. I did the trick with registry on my wifes' father pc and it worked.

You can also try to just disable Windows Update services which was always the easiest way to get rid of updates on every win along with the first edition od Win10.

New updates were always a problem from Win95 to new Win10. It is not new. I suggest to disable them and only install big ones after 4-6 months when all mistakes were fixed with following updates to the old ones. I actually stopped the updates on Win XP service pack 3. I had never any problem with my Win7, Win8 and now Win8.1. I did install some updates on those OS to fix particular problems, but 2-3 fixes out of ten thousand updates is like nothing.

Ps. Win10 is the first Win that is violating your privacy big time, so i also suggest to turn off all things in privacy as well as read some guide on internet how to protect yourself from lettting MS looking what you have in your hard drive. This is actually bigger and main problem for me why i still havent upgraded to 10.

----------


## Redrobes

About the ISO file, yes you must download it to your local hard drive. You cannot just plug in the USB stick and move it across like another file you need to use an app like that Disk Imager, or whatever to burn the file to the drive. The ISO is a copy of the drive image with all the bits set up so that it is bootable. Its like a bit pattern of the whole drive rather than a file. If your laptop came with a DVD writer built in which most do then you only need a writable DVD disk to try it out. Again, you need the ISO file on your harddrive downloaded from the net then you use a program which burns DVDs like DVDBurner or the SoftThink one.

As for windows changing the BIOS I am not sure at all. I would have thought that unlikely. But were talking BIOS here so even if you wiped windows off the machine then the issue still exists. My only thought is that maybe there is a quick boot option which skips the listing. I bought a machine for somebody recently and it was a devil of a job to get to the bios. I had to look it up and you needed to insert a pin or paper clip into this little hole in the side of the machine to get to the bios interface. What with this and the recent M.E foobar I think were all getting tired of this and in future I think ill be asking for some online reviews about the BIOS / boot procedures and capabilities before I buy somebodys laptop. I used to like Novatech (co uk) as they are the only people I know of who would sell you a laptop without the OS on it. Everyone else you had to buy it with MS on it and then take it off and throw it into the bin. They are in Portsmouth if your along that way. £373 gets you 8Gb quad core laptop but I think the one you have is completely fine if it had a bit of a memory upgrade given the type of work your doing on it.

----------


## Voolf

> Woah! I've just tried in vain to boot up from USB. I was able to access my BIOS last week but now I can't, it just gives me a blinking cursor in the top left. Does Windows 10 overwrite the firmware even on custom PCs to prevent other operating systems being installed? I tried using the BIOS bootloader and selected USB HDD but it just went straight into Windows.
> 
> I'm going to have to look into this. If the OS is tampering with the BIOS without permission then that is surely some sort of crime.


I have never heard of Win interfering with Bios. It is unlikely, you have to be able to acces Bios no matther what you have on your HDD (it is not related at all), you can unplug you HDD (or SSD) and you can still enter Bios.

----------


## Mouse

Voolf - stick with Win 8.1.  I wish I had!  

I've never messed with my registry before, so from my point of view (and now historically) there was no way to stop the updates. 

Red - thanks again for the extra info.  I'll get hold of that stick, download the ISO and try to boot from it.  Then I'll let you know if it worked, or if I have the same problem as Straf  :Smile:

----------


## Voolf

Try to disable the Windows Update service (they could already protect this, but worth a try), its very easy, and if it won't work you can turn it on again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akF0EiQF5jM

----------


## Mouse

Ok - thanks.  I'll look into that, Voolf  :Smile: 

Red - you saying that about upgrading the memory?  

This is a screen shot of my Task Manager, taken 10 minutes after I opened my current Guild City map.  I've selected 'disk' to show that the disc is still active 100% of the time, even though I haven't drawn so much as a dot on the map - haven't even moved the mouse across the screen for the last 10 minutes, so apart from the fact that Krita is open and displaying the City map, the system is idle.  

I'm pretty much a dunce at how systems work, since when I was at school we were never taught a thing about them, and I've only ever been a user (apart from a brief foray into programing simple stuff in various Builders about 20 years ago), so I just don't understand the architecture, or even the terminology, but... shouldn't the RAM be used up before the system is forced to resort to using the disc as extra memory?

As you can see here, there is still a little bit of RAM left for me to dab lines and what-have-you onto my map, but the disc is working full pelt.  To me, its as if the system is treating the disc as RAM, and the RAM as a memory reserve.



Is this normal?

----------


## Straf

I bought this PC second hand last week. It came with Windows 10 pre-installed. As soon as I fired it up it and got it connected it immediately started the upgrade. After it had all finished (most of the day) I then found that the machine was overclocked and had custom RAM settings. I wanted to put 8GB of RAM I had into it so I reset the BIOS back to failsafe and everything seemed OK. Now I can't get into the BIOS at all. It just hangs. Any other settings it seems the USB sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

The PC that died on me the other week happened just after I'd installed Windows 10 CU onto a second hard disk. Suspected corrupted BIOS.

Therefore I suspect that Windows 10 is flashing the UEFI ROM with its own version of something.

----------


## Falconius

Try what Voolf suggested and unplug the windows drive.  Or try booting with just the original RAM (which I'd try first actually).  Maybe you just got a bad stick?

----------


## Straf

It seems to be the RAM as I have the same thing going on as this thread and I have almost the same RAM - HyperX Fury but 2 x 4GB. So I'll try the swap in a bit.

----------


## selden

Mouse, 

All of that disk activity suggests to me that your system might be paging, although you'd need to look at the task manager's detailed memory window to be sure. In other words, the memory used by all the programs in memory has grown larger than the amount of physical RAM, so it has to use a paging file on disk to make up for the shortfall. That'll cause your program to slow to a crawl.

One of the options in the "advanced" Windows settings is to configure a fixed-sized paging file, which has somewhat better performance than having the paging space dynamically allocated (the default). Of course, it'll still be much slower than having more RAM. I'm not sitting in front of a Win10 computer right now, so I can't show the details. I can do that later today, if you're interested.

If you haven't already done so, you should look to see what programs are running and shut down all of the ones that you can. That'll free up some RAM, which should help a little.

----------


## Mouse

Thank you Selden  :Smile: 

I would be most interested in seeing how you fix the size of the paging file.  It may help while I'm getting myself organised to at least have a go with Linux.

I only had Krita open at the time I took that screen shot, and the numbers at the bottom of the screen indicated Krita itself was using 1.3 GB with the City map open but idle.  So I guess the rest of the RAM is Win 10.  That's 2.9 - 1.3 = 1.6 GB RAM just for the OS.  Which effectively reduces my usable RAM to a maximum of just 2.4GB when idle  :Frown: 

I expect things will be a lot easier once I've converted to Linux.  At least I hope a Linux OS won't be using 1.6GB of my RAM just to idle.

----------


## Straf

It was my RAM. Apparently the 1866MHz modules don't work properly with the motherboard. I'll have to look for some compatible modules because 4GB just isn't enough these days.

----------


## Mouse

I'll vouch for that!  4GB RAM is inadequate - _except_ that I'm hoping it will be sufficient with an OS that doesn't leach nearly half of it away in an idle state!

----------


## selden

Straf,

Another problem is that you usually can't mix memory modules from different manufacturers. Too often modules with supposedly identical timing characteristics simply don't cooperate.

----------


## Straf

Yeah that's why I swapped them out rather than add to them. Another reason is the DIMM blockage courtesy of the stupidest heatsinks I've ever seen:



But yeah it's going to be a 4 x 2GB or 2 x 4GB purchase which I can't afford right now.

----------


## Mark Oliva

> Try to disable the Windows Update service (they could already protect this, but worth a try), its very easy, and if it won't work you can turn it on again.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akF0EiQF5jM


I haven't done this anywhere for a while.  It always used to work just fine.  I don't have a computer with Windows 10 Home 64-Bit.  Our machines all have Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit (with Fall Creators update).  I did try it on our laptop, which we seldom use, and it still works like it should there.

However ... as is obvious ... this only prevents future automatic updates.  It won't roll back the Fall Creator Update if it's already installed.  And if the rollback files have been erased, there's a problem.

If other people are worried about such things happening in the future, do this:

1)  Get an external drive.
2)  Open Windows _Settings_.
3)  Pick _Update and Security_.
4)  Pick _Backup_.
5)  Define a full system backup that matches your needs.  Back it up onto your external drive.
6)  Let your backups run as you defined them.

If you then get bamboozled one day by an automatic Windows update:

7)  Turn off the automatic updates, as described above.
8 )  Restore your previous system with the backup options defined above.

I do have people with hardware that works only through Windows 10 before the first Creator Update who are successfully doing just this.

Servus,

----------


## selden

Mouse,

Here are the steps I recommend for creating a fixed-size page file. They all must be performed from a privileged (administrator) account. If a reboot doesn't happen automatically, it'd probably be appropriate to reboot after each step, if only to make sure file pointers have been properly cleaned up. It's important that the page file be created with the minimum number of pieces (i.e. it should be contiguous if at all possible), hence the need to clean up and defragment the disk ahead of time.

You might be familiar with some of these steps from previous experience, but I've tried to be explicit enough for those people who aren't. Many (all?) of these programs can be accessed by browsing through various other menus, but it's often quicker to use Search to find them.

1. chkdsk
   Type the single word above into Windows search. then type an Enter

   Schedule your system partition (drive C) to be scanned at next reboot 
     (it can't be done while the disk is being accessed by the system software)
   Reboot and chkdisk will run.

2. disk cleanup
   Type the two words above into Windows search. then type an Enter

   After it does its initial scan, select appropriate categories of files to delete
   For a detailed description, see https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

3. optimize drive
   Type the two words above into Windows search. then type an Enter

   In the popup window, select your system partition (Drive C) and then click on "Optimize"
   This works for both spinning hard drives and solid state disks, although it does different things. 
   It'll actually move files around on hard drives. Supposedly it doesn't do that for SSDs.

4. create page file
   Type the words "advanced system" into Windows search.
   Select the entry "View advanced system settings"

   For subsequent steps, performed in the popup "System Properties" window, start at step 3 on the Web page https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

 *except*

   set both "Initial size" and "Maximum size" to the same value. If you have enough free disk space, 16384 (16GB) or 32768 (32GB) probably would be appropriate
   Reboot.

I hope this helps.

----------


## Mouse

Thank you Mark  :Smile: 

Just so people know - if I seem to have gone a bit quiet compared to usual, I'm downloading Linuxmint 18.3 right now, and rather anxious to just let my system do its thing without accidentally breaking the broadband connection by using the laptop for anything else.

I may be back later to pester poor Red for more advice if I can't get to grips with the instructions  :Wink: 

EDIT: sorry Selden - didn't see your comment on the page break.  Thank you so much for doing that for me.  I am attempting a many pronged attack on the problem.  I'm trying Linux, but I will also see if controlling the paging helps with Win 10.

Defrag is automatic and continuous with Win 10.  

Download has slowed down!  Bye for now - shutting Guild page to eliminate possibility of Win 10 disrupting the download.  Prioritisation with this OS is naff!

----------


## Falconius

> Yeah that's why I swapped them out rather than add to them. Another reason is the DIMM blockage courtesy of the stupidest heatsinks I've ever seen:
> 
> 
> 
> But yeah it's going to be a 4 x 2GB or 2 x 4GB purchase which I can't afford right now.


That looks like an old Noctua radiator (supposed to be superb) with some extra offbrand fan strapped to it.  You only really need the brown one so long as it's oriented right (blowing towards the back).  Even if you don't want to take off the LED fan completely you should be able to just move it up the radiator by moving the clips up the tower a bit (it may not be as easy as it is with the new ones, honestly I'd just ditch the LED fan).

----------


## selden

> Defrag is automatic and continuous with Win 10.


The Defrag menu on the Win10 computer I'm using right now does not have a "continuous" option: it can be scheduled for daily, weekly or monthly intervals. It's best to make sure it's done right before creating the page file, since recent work might have crated lots of tiny files, badly fragmenting the disc.

However, I am using Windows 10 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) so it might not be the same as Windows 10 Home edition.

----------


## Mouse

The default on mine seems to be 'Daily', which is what I meant by continuously.  Not really the same thing, I know, but it might as well be continuous compared to the 'once in a blue moon' technique I employed when these things were manual  :Smile: 

The current state of the C drive is 2% fragmented, which is what it always seems to tell me when I think to check it every now and then.

EDIT: I also realise, now that I'm not panicking about the download, that I've already done Disk Cleanup just recently.  That's how come I accidentally deleted the previous versions of Windows, and why I would have to completely reinstall Win 8.1 if I wanted to go in that direction.

I'm just going to try and make this boot stick for Linux now and see if I can get the system to boot from it  :Wink:

----------


## selden

The defragger I used to use gave a detailed picture of where the pieces of files were on the disk.I could watch it shuffling things around while it was trying to make the free space as big as possible and putting important files where they could be accessed and loaded more quickly. I stopped using it when I got an SSD. I dunno what "2%" means.  :Frown: 

Some defraggers actually do have a "continuous" mode: they instantly try to defragment and reposition files as soon as they've been written.

----------


## Mouse

Oh I remember those!  

Only 2% fragmented - the other 98% has already been defragmented, so in one of those old style disc images it would appear much as if you had just completed a defrag  :Smile:

----------


## Straf

> Oh I remember those!  
> 
> Only 2% fragmented - the other 98% has already been defragmented, so in one of those old style disc images it would appear much as if you had just completed a defrag


There was always a little bit of fragmentation from certain blocks that can't be moved.





> That looks like an old Noctua radiator (supposed to be superb) with some extra offbrand fan strapped to it.  You only really need the brown one so long as it's oriented right (blowing towards the back).  Even if you don't want to take off the LED fan completely you should be able to just move it up the radiator by moving the clips up the tower a bit (it may not be as easy as it is with the new ones, honestly I'd just ditch the LED fan).


I think I will remove that fan. Do you think the single fan would handle a hardcore MUD session then?  :Razz: 

I'm nowhere near a power user these days. I don't do any online gaming any more. I ragequit WoW, TFC got overwhelmed by cheatbots and a lot of the MOH clans switched to COD which I didn't really like. They were the only things I played and I never got into anything since. I have the occasional game of TF2 for a laugh.

----------


## Mouse

Right.

I created the stick.  I rebooted the PC.  It came up Windows.

I watched the video that Red linked to, and remembered that you have to hit ESC as you turn on the machine to get into the start up menu.

I did that, and I got into the startup menu, but... I couldn't select any of the options - not the boot from USB, or the BIOS.

Is that because before the OS is activated there's no recognition of the keyboard input?

----------


## Straf

Are you using an external keyboard? Use the keys on the laptop keyboard to enter the boot options. Also is it ESC? I thought it was F11 or F12 on HP.

----------


## Mouse

It was ESC on the video I watched.  It was such a very long time ago - back in the days of Win 3.1 the last time I ever had to interrupt the startup by hitting F?, so I really can't remember.

I was using the laptop keyboard.  I hit ESC, and I got the menu showing me that I should hit F9 for USB boot, or F10 for BIOS.  (another couple of options but those were the ones I was interested in)

I tried both, but nothing happened at all.  

In the end I hit RETURN, which was the option to continue the usual startup - Win 10

----------


## Redrobes

I think you have the boot menu for the OS but not BIOS. The BIOS has all the stuff like Boot order, list your HDDs or DVD drives, maybe CPU clock rate and temperature, whether to set a BIOS password and all those things. If you just have Start Windows or Go to Safe Mode or something along those lines its not the BIOS.

Normally to get to BIOS you hit F1 or F2 or maybe Del key during the start of cold boot.

I have also heard that modern windows basically does not fully shut down. It always goes to a hibernate kind of function even when you ask it to shut down so that when you reboot its never from cold. This was the issue I was having with the laptop I bought a few months ago and where I needed to push a pin into the hole in the side. Then it reset the mobo and it started a cold boot.

Another option you might be able to try is that if its dead easy to remove the laptop battery then take out the power supply lead, remove the battery, count to about 30 and then put it in and boot and carefully watch the screen for the enter BIOS instructions which often can flash by real fast.

If you have a digital camera can you take a photo of the screen at the point of where its in the BIOS menu and post it ? Also, whats the name of the laptop again - lets have a look at what is the expected BIOS keys for it. I found a good site a few months back to tell me what to do with mine.

Also - regarding the 100% HDD usage - selden has it right, you need to know why its doing that. The tab left of the one in the screen shot says processes. That should show you what is using a lot of CPU which is likely to be the same one as using the HDD. It could very well be swap but it could also be the file indexer scanning through your HDD looking and indexing the drive so when you do a file search its quicker than scanning it later. When windows is idle it kicks off all sorts of maintenance things like disk defrag etc. No telling what its doing. Shutdown Krita and everything else and then leave it a minute and then put up the process list and do a screen cap of that.

----------


## Mouse

This is the laptop:



(sorry if that's not what you meant - I'll be back as quick as I can - camera works when it wants to)

----------


## Azélor

> There was always a little bit of fragmentation from certain blocks that can't be moved.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think I will remove that fan. Do you think the single fan would handle a hardcore MUD session then? 
> 
> I'm nowhere near a power user these days. I don't do any online gaming any more. I ragequit WoW, TFC got overwhelmed by cheatbots and a lot of the MOH clans switched to COD which I didn't really like. They were the only things I played and I never got into anything since. I have the occasional game of TF2 for a laugh.


That thing is huge!
I think (but I could be wrong) that has long as you are not overclocking, you don't need all that extra cooling. Unless you happen to have those very fast and cheap 5 Ghz CPU used for cooking.

----------


## Redrobes

Ok, apparently its escape key followed by F10 key. But I suspect that is from a cold boot.

This link looks like exactly what you need and its from HP themselves.
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03736054

Seems like you have an option to turn off Secure Boot which is what is causing you the issue.

----------


## Straf

Mouse, do the function keys on the laptop need the Fn key pressed down to make them work?

----------


## Mouse

ESC works, but when you get to this screen the only key that works is ENTER



@Straf - yes.  As with most laptops, the top row of keys on the keyboard have double functions.  They are media controls (volume, play, pause... and display adjusters; brightness, contrast etc).  They are also the F keys 1-12.  You have to press the FN key at the bottom of the keyboard at the same time as the F key to get the function.

I've just realised what you are saying  :Frown:

----------


## Mouse

None of the cursor keys work.  I can't get at any of that menu.  Not the number pad arrows, or the ordinary cursor arrows.

----------


## selden

Can you open up the laptop enough to unplug its internal disk drive?

If you do that it might do an appropriate search for other bootable disks. Might.  :Frown:

----------


## Mouse

I'm sorry Selden.  This is the only machine I have.  I'm too much of a woos to do anything to it that might damage it, and I don't know the first thing about the hardware.  

I'm the kind of person who, on opening a delicate electronic assembly, will manage to find the only spring in its parts and accidentally trigger it to fly out and disappear over my shoulder, never to be seen again.  Most usually, this is the only part of the device that no one sells as a separate spare part that can be easily replaced. 

If I break this thing I lose all contact with you and everyone else, and it could be a while before I get it mended again.

----------


## selden

A quick Web search found this page: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...ok/m-p/3437787

If I'm reading its instructions correctly, to get into the BIOS on a model 15, you're supposed to type on just the F1 key (or F10; not holding down the Fn key in either case) while it's powering on.

More details seem to be available at https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/bph07110#N771

----------


## Mouse

Well, going on the instructions that Red linked to above, it should be possible to use this menu to access the boot settings so that I can turn off secure boot.

Since the instructions are directly from HP, I really don't think it was them who made it impossible for me to access the BIOS.

Is there any other way into the BIOS?

EDIT: ninjad by Selden  :Smile: 

I'll have a read...

----------


## Falconius

> I think I will remove that fan. Do you think the single fan would handle a hardcore MUD session then? 
> 
> I'm nowhere near a power user these days. I don't do any online gaming any more. I ragequit WoW, TFC got overwhelmed by cheatbots and a lot of the MOH clans switched to COD which I didn't really like. They were the only things I played and I never got into anything since. I have the occasional game of TF2 for a laugh.


Oh sure just crank that thing up to 5 Ghz so long as it stays at a blistering 96 degrees Celsius it'll be fine*.  POWAH!  The incredible beauty of super fast text, it'll be like the matrix.

(honestly who hasn't ragequit WoW, damn that game was irritating)


*Since the machine will turn off.

----------


## ChickPea

Mouse, do the instructions on this page help... This (supposedly) should set the machine to automatically enter the BIOS. I'm pretty sure I did this when I was installing Linux on my laptop.

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/access-bios-windows-10

EDIT: Also, I don't watch reality TV but this thread is better than reality TV! The whole Guild's on the edge of their seats to see what happens next!  :Very Happy:

----------


## Mouse

LOL!

Well thanks to Selden's googling that first link he gave above, I just discovered the 'ape' method of getting into the BIOS - repeatedly hit the F10 key as the machine is starting up.

(it did feel a bit childish, I have to admit - a bit like I'd lost my rag with it and was just hitting it out of sheer spite, but it DID get me into the BIOS menu)

Don't kill me...

I disabled the secure boot, but then I forgot what else I was supposed to do, so I had to come back to read everyone's comments again  :Smile:

----------


## Mouse

Having read your link, ChickPea, I would say that's the way its really supposed to be done - not hammering the F10 key to death!  :Razz: 

Anyway.

I made the changes I thought I needed.  As I said previously I disabled the secure boot, but this time I also altered the EUFI Boot order as shown here:



Then I saved it, allowed startup to continue so that I could shut the machine down properly again.  When I rebooted it, however, I got...

Windows 10

Ok.  So... bearing in mind what Red said about Windows never really shutting down, I shut down, pulled all the plugs out and removed the battery, then went for a cup of coffee.  After about 10 minutes I put everything back together again and made sure the boot stick was plugged in firmly, then hit the ON button.

I got...

Windows 10

I think I did the stick right.  I'm pretty certain I did.  I followed Red's instructions exactly, and where he referred to a sheet of instructions on a link to another page, I followed them exactly as well.

This is the folder structure of the boot stick I made.



Does it look all right (I mean apart from the horrendous moiré patterns)?

----------


## Mouse

Just thinking out loud here.

Did I move the wrong thing to the top of the boot list?

----------


## Non Serviam

Does your laptop have a DVD slot?  If so, can it burn DVDs, or only read them?

----------


## Mouse

I don't think I've ever tried burning one.  Don't know if I even have the software to do it.

Hardly ever use it, and I don't have any writeable DVDs to play with right now (can't go and get any till tomorrow either, because its gone 10 pm in the UK).

----------


## Straf

You want USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Disk at the top, not the USB CD/DVD ROM. That's if you're booting from an external optical drive.

----------


## Mouse

Right-o  :Smile: 

Back soon!

----------


## Non Serviam

Mouse, if that doesn't work then I'll post you a DVD with Linux Mint 18.3 burned onto it.  I've been using your parchment textures for years, it's the least I can do. (You'd have to PM me an address to send it to.)

----------


## acrosome

Y'know, I had a problem with an old laptop once, when I was trying to install Linux on it and no matter how I reset the BIOS the damned thing simply refused to boot from the DVD drive.  To this day I have no idea why.  I gave up, deciding that it was obviously not a Linux problem but rather a problem with the hardware or something.  Hopefully you're not in the same boat.

I will also add a couple of comments in case you want yet more unsolicited advice from another Linux geek:

1. I routinely "salvage" unsalvageable computers that people give me just by installing Linux on them.  It's (usually) easy to try Linux out by booting from a DVD or a USB, to be sure that your system is compatible with the version you're using.  And almost all Linux versions are very friendly about dual-booting, so there is rarely anything to lose.

2. I'd actually recommend Mint rather than Ubuntu, especially for someone migrating from Windows.  Mint is Ubuntu, actually, but the devs are not as religious as the Ubuntu devs about all software being utterly and totally non-proprietary.  They take the Ubuntu kernel and add most of the same free-as-in-free-speech stuff but they also include codexes and whatnot that are free-as-in-free-beer stuff but that are nonetheless the proprietary IP of somebody.  A good example is printer drivers.  A more important one is media drivers.  If you install Ubuntu you are very likely to try to play some video or music file someday only to find that you don't have a driver for it, because no free driver exists.  Mint avoids this problem.

3. If you're considering going Mac then that's another _great_ reason to try Linux now!  Why?  Because OS X is Linux!  That's why OS X is not backward-compatible with older Mac software; Apple just 8hitcanned their entire operating system and derived one from Linux (or Unix, if you prefer).  So if you fool around with Linux a bit and learn some command line stuff it will serve you in OS X.  This is one reason that I went Mac as well.  (Another is that I got tired of dealing with my wife's many PC issues.  That woman crashes computers just by looking at them cross-eyed, and simply refuses to do any system maintenance at all.  So, now that she has a Mac it is all done automatically for her.)

----------


## Mouse

HOLY COW!

This is Mouse, speaking through Firefox, operating on Linux Mint!  :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:   :Very Happy: 

(My keyboard is set up wrong on Linux, so I can't find the 'at' symbol)

Straf - You were right, Straf.  Wrong thing at the top of the boot list  :Wink: 

Non Serviam - extremely kind offer, and thank you for that, but as you can see it was just the wrong boot order  :Very Happy: 

acrsome - Intersting information - thank you.  I've only done a stick boot, but I've done it with Mint.  I was following Red's instructions above  :Smile: 



Heeeeeey..... this is greeeeeat.... everything is so blinking FAST!!!!

I just opened up GIMP and did a flood fill on a 10000 x 10000 pi file with 10 layers, and it didn't even catch its breath!!!

Wooohoooooooo!!!  :Very Happy: 

I assumed I wouldn't be able to get through to my mobile broadband device, since I can't see any of my Windows file structure from here, but I could, and here I am  :Smile: 

Now to get down to trying to understand what all this command line stuff is about....

----------


## Mouse

Thank you so much - ChickPea, Red, Falconius, Straf - all of you.  This is just fantastic!

----------


## selden

Now you're actually going to have to do some work  :Wink: 

Have fun!

----------


## Straf

Somewhere in a menu there'll be a settings or system settings or something. There'll likely be an option to change the keyboard to UK. If not then the @ symbol can be found on shift-2, the " where the UK @ is and the # is on shift-3. There is no pound sign.

----------


## acrosome

Mwa-ha-ha-ha!  We have her, now!

Ah, the command line.  The command line is like DOS in Microsoft machines- it's one step closer to the metal than the Windows GUI.  Like DOS, it uses a command vocabulary and grammar, and it is very different from DOS.  You just have to learn it.

And, yes, unfortunately you do have to learn it, at least in a very basic form.  This is because NO MATTER WHAT THE LINUX GEEKS TRY TO TELL YOU, if you do anything more than running your favorite app or word processing or getting on the internets, then _at some point_ you're going to want to do something that cannot be done through the GUI.  Especially if you find some obscure beta version of some software somewhere, like WorldEngine or something.  So, you should at least learn the file structure and very basic commands like _ls_, _cp, grep_, and _cd_.  The _Linux for Dummies_ book actually isn't a bad place to start, but a basic one specific to your particular distro might be better if you are not a _total_ computer neophyte (for instance, if you knew what DOS was when I mentioned it above).  There are already at least two Mint 18 books out.

FWIW, I always thought that GIMP worked _absolutely marvelously_ in Linux.

Oh, and usually, when you actually do the full install, Mint will specifically ask you what keyboard you have.

Damn.  I'm getting motivated to break out my old Mint laptop, just to mess around a bit.  Linux was always SO MUCH more fun to just putter about with than Windows ever was...

----------


## Straf

Oh and the reason you don't need your driver files is because everything just works. Drivers tend to be loaded into the kernel space as modules at runtime depending on the hardware detected. You can take a hard disk from one machine and plug it into another and it'll work - except for X which will crash because the graphics drivers are configured there not in the kernel space.

----------


## Mouse

Thank you Selden  :Smile: 

Thank you Straf  :Smile: 

Acrsome - GIMP is like a totally different animal on this thing.


I think I'm going to have to go and have a lie down after all this excitement, so I can get up nice and fresh in the morning and read the manual to see what's what and have a proper play  :Very Happy:

----------


## Non Serviam

I'm totally chuffed that it's worked so well!

----------


## Straf

Haha! It's like a new toy on Christmas morning.

Mouse before you go ahead and install this over Windows may I suggest that you make sure you have your product key for Windows printed or written somewhere? It may be on the bottom of the computer or it might be on a manual or something. If not it can be obtained from the registry with a software tool. The other option is it's in the UEFI flash ROM and again I believe there are tools to retrieve it. It's just in case you wish to go back to Windows some day you'll need it!

----------


## ChickPea

Woohoo!! Well done, Mouse.  :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:  So glad you got it working. And it's fantastic that it seems to be working so well. 

Mouse has officially joined the dark side!  :Razz:

----------


## Redrobes

I was going to say much the same as straf. Dont install it just yet. Get back on the lame donkey and go in and write down all your user ids, logins, everything and back everything up and snaffle it all away as much as you can. Your going to need all that to set up your new email, bookmarks and so on.

Another thing id say is to get a new blank notebook and start to write down a lot of little things because there are a load of same things but done slightly differently. For a while you can live on the GUI but you will HAVE to get used to getting the terminal out and doing a couple of things on the command line. Arcsome is right in that theres things which are 100 clicks on a gui but one line in the terminal. The only thing is that the terminal command is like a bit of voodoo for a while until you get used to it.

Linux is based on Unix which is very old and a lot of stuff has beginnings going back to the stone age of computing - pre MSDOS. Like 1960's things. Some stuff doesnt make a lot of sense but thats how it is because everyone knows thats just how it is. But if you have never come from that background then its handy to have a notepad to write some of it down. I use a local wiki so I can copy and paste some rarely used stuff but you need to install it first and get apache or nginx running if you want that.

Your live version is slower than the installed version. Its not that linux is inherantly faster than windows but MS have bloated their OS the point of near death obesity. Gimp, Blender, Krita and many other bits of software are natively developed on linux and ported to Windows. They work better on their native OS - usually that means more stable.

You will still need 8Gb at some point tho because of the kind of work were all doing here but you should get a new lease of life for a while.

EDIT: Oh yeah and just one more thing. I personally would not try to install any custom speedy video drivers from nVidia or whatever you may have on the system. If the graphics work pretty well and not really a problem then dont try to max it unless you know what your doing. Only the video driver installation is dodgy on a new install of linux IMO. If you know what your doing its ok but you can end up with a black screen pretty easily.

----------


## Falconius

> Haha! It's like a new toy on Christmas morning.
> 
> Mouse before you go ahead and install this over Windows may I suggest that you make sure you have your product key for Windows printed or written somewhere? It may be on the bottom of the computer or it might be on a manual or something. If not it can be obtained from the registry with a software tool. The other option is it's in the UEFI flash ROM and again I believe there are tools to retrieve it. It's just in case you wish to go back to Windows some day you'll need it!


Actually depending on the license you can tie your key to your Microsoft account and install it and use it on any one machine you migrate to (it's in Settings>Updates&Security>Activation).  Mouse might want to do this to avoid having to pay a fortune for Win 10 in the future (because paying an outrageous price for Windows is always extremely galling).  If it's an OEM (ie preloaded windows) license it May not work but it's still worth a shot.

----------


## johnvanvliet

who here REMEMBERS windows 1 and 2 on floppies ????
or DOS
or louts 123 

terminal 

the terminal is really easy  and has been around since the 60's 
or longer on the definition on a terminal interface 

i am on LQ most days
-- a Great Great site 
https://www.linuxquestions.org/

you will need to have a few posts in the "intro" section and 5 or 10 now as a spam bot block to PM me 

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/user/john-vv-197074/


Feel free to ask questions 

i have Debian 9 on a VM -- not Mint but close

----------


## Straf

I remember CP/M  :Wink:

----------


## acrosome

> who here REMEMBERS windows 1 and 2 on floppies ????
> or DOS
> or louts 123


Brother, my first box was a Commodore 64...   :Smile: 

Let the nostalgia posts commence!

----------


## Falconius

> who here REMEMBERS windows 1 and 2 on floppies ????
> or DOS
> or louts 123


Was there a windows 1 or 2?  The OS's I remember from then are DOS of course, and I remember the Apple 2, and was it the Atari OS(?) there was some sort of windows like GUI before windows that I remember. And then the first windows I remember is 3.1.

----------


## waldronate

GEM from digital research was much more fun than Windows 1 or 2.

Of course, I was always partial to my old Apple ][. The tape drive (err, cassette player/radio) port on the ZX-81 was just too much hassle and the keyboard was too tiny to do much at all with it. Of course, I still have the old ZX-81 and the Apple is long gone...

The biggest problem with the command line for a lot of folks is that it's inherently non-discoverable. WIMP lets you poke at stuff once you master move and click. A command line means that you need to know at least a few things to start typing to get anywhere at all.

----------


## Mark Oliva

> Was there a windows 1 or 2?


Yes.  Windows 1 was something of a toy.  It didn't do much, but it was a pet project of Bill Gates to show at starting level where a PC could go in terms of graphics.  Commodore, Atari, GEM and others already were doing some graphics, where IBM PC-DOS and Microsoft's MS-DOS were character-based systems designed to support the IBM PC architecture, which was intended to be a data-crunching machine and nothing else.  In the late 1980s, Windows 2.0 appeared.  It still didn't do a lot by any modern standard, but it was a necessary GUI application for programs like Aldus Pagemaker desktop publishing or Microsoft's own new Excel spreadsheet.  However, Windows 1 and 2 were GUI applications for MS-DOS, not operating systems.  Both Pagemaker and Excel were delivered with runtime versions of Windows 2.0, which had only the parts of Windows necessary to run these programs.  With the release of Windows 2.11, Microsoft shook the PC world up a bit.  To run it without any hitches, it required an 80286 or 80386 processor (IBM AT levels).  That rather quickly made the basic 8086 and 8088 processors (IBM XT) obsolete.  A lot of the world wanted then to run the current version of Excel.  One could run Windows 2.11 and Excel 2.0 on an XT, but not everything worked.

These were different days.  MS-DOS and PC-DOS were the main PC operating systems.  Word Perfect was the leading word processor, with Microsoft Word No. 2.  Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading spreadsheet program with the combined Microsoft Multiplan and Microsoft Chart running far behind in sales.  Ashton-Tate dBase was _the_ database program.  Microsoft had no database of its own, but it did sell someone else's product.  My recollection is that it was called RBase.

Then 1990 came along.  Excel already started bypassing 1-2-3, Microsoft Word for Windows bypassed Word Perfect, and Microsoft Access gradually outpaced the two leading databases, dBase and Borland Paradox.  Today all these once great names that kept Microsoft in the corner as an operating system producer are only fading memories of old farts like me.  So it goes ... so it went.

----------


## Straf

RBase is correct I think. It offered a bit more in the back end as well IIRC. I never dabbled with it too much, but someone I was working with was trying to link it up to AutoCAD. AutoCAD came on something like 15 x 5.25" floppies and required a dongle in the parallel port to work. The plan was to produce a drawing that would produce a cutting list that would then be sent off to engineering, but it would also allocate the materials in the stores for the job, remove from stock and do the costings. Sort of early ERP stuff. I don't know how that went because I switched engineering for science.

I remember GEM and thinking it was more of a toy than anything. At least its PC implementation. There was no 'multi-tasking' like we consider it now. Mice were still for draughtsmen in specialist drawing packages. If you needed something remote you had to know the full path of its location and get it using FTP, no pointing and clicking on files. Also it was com.cartographersguild for URLs rather than the way round they are now. I think there was something called Gopher that could search for stuff. When I was at Uni there was a transition from terminal based VAX systems to PC networks. They were set up in clusters using 10Base2 at first. They had Windows 3 on them I think with VAX in a terminal window.

----------


## Mark Oliva

> RBase is correct I think. _<SNIP>_ AutoCAD came on something like 15 x 5.25" floppies and required a dongle in the parallel port to work. The plan was to produce a drawing that would produce a cutting list that would then be sent off to engineering, but it would also allocate the materials in the stores for the job, remove from stock and do the costings. Sort of early ERP stuff. I don't know how that went because I switched engineering for science. _<SNIP>_ I remember GEM and thinking it was more of a toy than anything. At least its PC implementation.


You have a great memory!  I recall all of it - especially the 15-floppy AutoCAD package with the dongle, along with the illegal software that got one around it.  I don't know how everyone else sees it, but those weren't the good old days for me.  I much prefer working with Windows 10 Pro and the software I have today!

Another thing were all of the good and bad Windows versions, according to general opinion and the PC-Press:

Windows 1:  Hardly anyone knew it.
Windows 2:  Known mostly only in it's runtime version but drawing some fans of its own for Paint.  
Windows 3.0:  A superstar in it's time.
Windows 3.1/3.11:  Ditto, except for moaning over 3.0 programs that didn't run under 3.1 and 3.11
Windows NT through 3.5:  Known mostly only to IT types.  Not fully Windows 3.x compatible.
Windows 95:  Superstar for private users.  (Business was moving toward NT.)
Windows NT 4.0:  The first really solid Windows version.
Windows 98:  For private users, a somewhat better Win 95.
Windows 98 2nd Edition:  A somewhat better Win 98.
Windows 2000:  Another really solid Windows, successor to NT 4.0
Windows Millennium Edition (ME):  Probably the worst Windows ever.  Loaded with errors, delighted in crashing.
Windows XP:  Goodbye DOS architecture.  Possibly the best-liked Windows of all.  Most users preferred it to its successor.
Windows Vista:  After ME, maybe the second most unpopular Windows.
Windows 7:  Many think it was the best Windows of all to date.  Maybe it was.
Windows 8:  Rather unpopular.  The GUI displeased a lot of users.
Windows 8.1:  Fixed some of the interface problems of 8.0.  Still small sales and installation numbers.
Windows 10:  Mixed verdicts.  The final judgment has yet to be made.

Then there also are the various Windows NT Server and Windows Server versions.  Seeing they seldom serve as a user front end, I won't mumble about them.

I'm curious how Windows 10 will be judged in the long run.  The many complaints about device drivers becoming incompatible and other compatibility problems probably won't be taken seriously by posterity.  The same problems have cropped up with many past Windows versions too, particularly NT in its earlier generations.  I have nothing against Windows 10.  I don't use any of the _"advantages"_ the two creator updates have given me, and if it serves me any better in my usage than Windows 7 did, I don't know where.  I don't use Edge or Cortana, so they do nothing for me either.  But as far as I'm concerned, Windows 10 runs fine.  The GIMP is absolutely fast on our machines, but they all have SSD drives and 32 to 64 GB RAM.

----------


## Mouse

I had an Atari 520ST as my first home machine, and used both DBASE and PARADOX at my first couple of jobs.  Then I was part of a team converting thousands of docs to Word for a government organisation, and I've used Windows all my life since 3.1.

Though I was always aware that the freedom of the user to meddle with the settings and personalise Windows was being gradually eroded down through the years, I simply didn't realise how much of it was gone until yesterday evening, and Mint.

Now, however, I'm stuck in a quandary.

I'm an administrator/data analyst by trade, so of course I have MS Office, and I need to stay in touch with new developments in business software and have some of it at least on my home PC - this laptop.



Just how difficult would it be to convert this laptop to a dual boot system, so that I could use either Windows or Linux - depending on whether I wanted to work with Office or map something in GIMP/Krita?

Half 'dark', half 'light'  :Razz:

----------


## ChickPea

It's easy to dual boot, Mouse. In fact, the Mint installer has that option built in. You tell it what size of partition to allocate to Mint and it does it all for you.

----------


## Mouse

Thanks ChickPea  :Smile: 

What extra bits and pieces do I need to get hold of to do that?  Or can I just go right ahead and click the 'install Mint' disc on the boot stick I've just made?  

Will Windows just let me do that to my PC, or are there certain barriers I have to break down before I start?

(Sorry again for all the silly questions!)

----------


## Straf

> You have a great memory!  I recall all of it - especially the 15-floppy AutoCAD package with the dongle, along with the illegal software that got one around it.  I don't know how everyone else sees it, but those weren't the good old days for me.  I much prefer working with Windows 10 Pro and the software I have today!


They were good old days because that's how things were. You spent as much time having to know about how things worked as you did actually being productive. With today's software it's probably 'even better now days' because there's more time spent being productive. I could have done an IT degree but I opted for science because I thought that a scientist who knows a bit computing is better than a computer tech that knows a bit of science. I went through uni during a time when if you needed something then you wrote a little program yourself unless you were lucky to have access to something like Minitab for statistics. It was the same for a while afterwards when I was working. Even now, though, pen and book is preferred to computer records for lab journals. Lab journals are generally accepted in court over computer records because someone would have to explain blockchains and timestamps to a judge  :Very Happy: 




> 8>< -----
> 
> I'm curious how Windows 10 will be judged in the long run.  The many complaints about device drivers becoming incompatible and other compatibility problems probably won't be taken seriously by posterity.  The same problems have cropped up with many past Windows versions too, particularly NT in its earlier generations.  I have nothing against Windows 10.  I don't use any of the _"advantages"_ the two creator updates have given me, and if it serves me any better in my usage than Windows 7 did, I don't know where.  I don't use Edge or Cortana, so they do nothing for me either.  But as far as I'm concerned, Windows 10 runs fine.  The GIMP is absolutely fast on our machines, but they all have SSD drives and 32 to 64 GB RAM.


The trouble is legacy. An example would be gas chromatography in a chemistry laboratory. A GC can cost as little as £30k to purchase, install and commission, but £40-50k is probably more typical. That's a significant cap-ex for a small company and it would be at least a 15 year investment. The hardware to interface said GC to PC has evolved quite a lot during the lifetime of the GC. Not so long ago a PC running NT with a 10Base2 ISA network card would happily sit there churning out samples day and night. But when that PC fails (as is the case with something that's running 24/7 for most of the year) and a replacement has to be sought, then legacy becomes an issue. Finding a board with ISA is one challenge. Then there's the issue with legacy drivers. The chipset &c. on the new board may not have NT compatible drivers, NT is long since discontinued. More recent operating systems won't recognise the ISA card, and getting them to support that old dinosaur 10Base2...

A failing PC that costs a couple of hundred quid could quite well become an unexpected cap-ex of £30-50k for a new GC. And if you've got a Mass Spectrometer on there too you're looking at another chunk of cash.

I'm not saying that operating systems should still support everything going back to the advent of computers, it would be ludicrous. I think some of the 'more and more bloated' comments are probably due to legacy support in some cases so inevitably some things have to be dropped. It can be quite devastating for a small business for something as relatively cheap as a PC failing though.

----------


## ChickPea

> Thanks ChickPea 
> 
> What extra bits and pieces do I need to get hold of to do that?  Or can I just go right ahead and click the 'install Mint' disc on the boot stick I've just made?  
> 
> Will Windows just let me do that to my PC, or are there certain barriers I have to break down before I start?
> 
> (Sorry again for all the silly questions!)


Yeah, you click the installer and it'll take you through a few stages.  It's all very simple and straightforward. The only marginally  complicated bit is the partitioning, where it divides up your hard drive  between Windows and Mint. Here's a guide from the official  documentation...

http://linuxmint-installation-guide....t/install.html

----------


## Straf

> Thanks ChickPea 
> 
> What extra bits and pieces do I need to get hold of to do that?  Or can I just go right ahead and click the 'install Mint' disc on the boot stick I've just made?  
> 
> Will Windows just let me do that to my PC, or are there certain barriers I have to break down before I start?
> 
> (Sorry again for all the silly questions!)


Windows won't even know. Let's say you made a 50/50 split. Windows would just see a 250GB hard disk. The Mint bootloader would load before the OS anyway and it gives you the choice of what to boot into. The problem is, though, that you'll have a smaller disk to work within. However if you set the Mint partition smaller you could still access your Windows partition from within there. Therefore the files you have saved there can be worked on on the Linux system.

----------


## ChickPea

Your Linux partition doesn't have to be massive either, if you're struggling for space. I'm not on home PC right now, so I can't check exactly, but I think my Ubuntu installation is somewhere around 6Gb(ish). That's the OS and all the apps I have installed. Obviously you'll need space for your own data files on top of that. It all depends how much stuff you want to store in the Linux area (bearing in mind that Windows won't be able to read your Linux file, but Linux can read your Windows files).

----------


## Mouse

Let me get this straight in my head before I do anything a bit permanent...

Are you saying that if I give Linux only 100 GB of my 500 GB drive, I can access files that are stored in the Windows 400 GB (it needs to be more than half anyway because of all the stuff I already have on there means that it is well over half full), and then save the version I've just worked on in the 100 GB Linux side?

How about accessing the files in the Linux 100GB side from Windows?

(I'm thinking that my hybrid GIMP/KRITA/CC3+ maps would be best done with CC3+ in Windows, and GIMP and KRITA in Mint)

Maybe the most important question of all - if I regret partitioning my drive, can it ever be undone?

EDIT: Ninjad by ChickPea  :Razz:  (hardly surprising - I'm on Windows right now and the browser is slow!)

----------


## Mouse

Ah!  I seeeeee  :Smile: 

So I could install Mint on just 6GB of space, work on any file I wanted, and then I presume that if I saved my work on my 16GB stick I could then download it into Windows from the stick?

----------


## Straf

You could use the Windows partition as a storage drive for your files. You don't have to keep them in the Linux partition. Just remember that Windows can't read the Linux file system so if you're doing CC3+ on Windows and you then switch to GIMP on Linux then you save it in the Linux partition you won't be able to open that up in CC3+. So best thing is is to have a folder on your Windows partition for ALL of your maps and just work from there.

----------


## Mouse

Still trying to get my head around this...

Say I already have folders named "GIMP work", "Krita work", "CC3 maps" "Challenge Maps", "City Maps" etc all in the Windows side, I'll be able to open them, edit them and save them again right where they are while working in Mint, and then go back to Windows and Windows will be able to see and use them just like before?

----------


## Mouse

Just thought about something else:

Will I need antivirus installed on the Mint side of things as well as the Windows side?

----------


## Straf

You should maybe read up on how Linux structures its file system.

On anything *.nix, generally speaking any thing is a file. Anything else is a process doing something to a file. Your keyboard is a file stream into the system. The console is a file stream out to you. Locations on a hard disk can be 'mounted' onto the file system. You can actually mount a directory in the Windows partition as a mount point in Linux and see it as a physical disk if you like. However that might be getting ahead of things. You should be able to set your saves directory in GIMP to the same one in your Windows My Documents folder by navigating to it.

----------


## Mouse

Mint doesn't come with Krita already included.  That's part of another version of Linux.  I located the download point while I was booted on the stick I made, but decided the better of it because it was only a stick boot, and the download was coming from a different version of Linux.

When I've installed Mint properly on my hard drive in, say... a 20 GB section of its own, I presume I would just download the compatible Krita app from where I found it through the Mint menu, and install it right there - in the 20GB Mint partition?  In effect I would have Krita installed twice on my hard drive.  Is that how its done?

----------


## Straf

> Still trying to get my head around this...
> 
> Say I already have folders named "GIMP work", "Krita work", "CC3 maps" "Challenge Maps", "City Maps" etc all in the Windows side, I'll be able to open them, edit them and save them again right where they are while working in Mint, and then go back to Windows and Windows will be able to see and use them just like before?


Yes  :Smile: 




> Just thought about something else:
> 
> Will I need antivirus installed on the Mint side of things as well as the Windows side?


TL;DR version: No. 

Explanation: There aren't all that many viruses kicking about for Linux. They do exist but they're rare. This is because to install things on Linux you have to have root access. You, as a user, do not have root access until you elevate yourself to 'superuser' status. Under the Ubuntu family of systems (it may even be the same for Debian I can't remember) you can temporarily elevate yourself using the 'sudo' command and then enter your password. Through the graphical interface, installing new software will pop up a window asking for your password.

Installing software on Ubuntu derivatives is largely done through repositories. These repositories (apart from the defaults) need to be set up before anything can be installed from them. You'll come already good to go with the main ones where all the software in there is checked and approved so is very unlikely to have malicious code. There are also partnered repositories for other software, and it's possible to add repositories for non-approved sources but you do so at your own risk. You then either use the graphical installer hoojar whose name I've forgotten, or you use the command line in the terminal to install.

You can download the .deb package and install manually, but you'd have to do this deliberately.

Another way to get software on your system is to download the source code, and compile it yourself. You'd have to do this very deliberately.

It's all about probabilities. The software in the repositories is hashed with an algorithm that is compared to the file that is downloaded to check its integrity. There is a chance that malicious code can have the same hash as the authentic code but ... probabilities dictate it's far too much effort to try to get access to the repository to upload malicious software that has the same hash as the authentic software, which is probably going to be overwritten every night anyway. So virus writers tend not to spend too much time writing for Linux systems.

----------


## Straf

> Mint doesn't come with Krita already included.  That's part of another version of Linux.  I located the download point while I was booted on the stick I made, but decided the better of it because it was only a stick boot, and the download was coming from a different version of Linux.
> 
> When I've installed Mint properly on my hard drive in, say... a 20 GB section of its own, I presume I would just download the compatible Krita app from where I found it through the Mint menu, and install it right there - in the 20GB Mint partition?  In effect I would have Krita installed twice on my hard drive.  Is that how its done?


Yes you install it through the software centre thingy. You don't have it twice because what you have is two different version of the software in two different systems. Basically what you're doing is splitting your computer into two computers. Think of Windows and Linux as two computers that just happen to be sharing the same hardware. A bit like a flat share. They're never home at the same time. But Linux is the creepy one that can rummage through Windows' stuff. Windows doesn't even know Linux exists in the flat and can't see its stuff.  :Razz: 

Linux sniffs Windows' undies while it's out at the shops  :Very Happy:

----------


## Mouse

ROFL! 

Thanks for that image Straf!  :Razz: 

Makes you wonder why Windows doesn't adopt a more LINUX style structure.  Wouldn't be so difficult to protect it from the bad guys then.

Mind you, that would do all those multibillion dollar AV publishers out of a job, wouldn't it.

Hmmmm....

Think I've just _seen_ those undies  :Wink:

----------


## Falconius

> Yes you install it through the software centre thingy. You don't have it twice because what you have is two different version of the software in two different systems. Basically what you're doing is splitting your computer into two computers. Think of Windows and Linux as two computers that just happen to be sharing the same hardware. A bit like a flat share. They're never home at the same time. But Linux is the creepy one that can rummage through Windows' stuff. Windows doesn't even know Linux exists in the flat and can't see its stuff. 
> 
> Linux sniffs Windows' undies while it's out at the shops


Lol

Good stuff.

----------


## Mark Oliva

> Though I was always aware that the freedom of the user to meddle with the settings and personalise Windows was being gradually eroded down through the years, I simply didn't realise how much of it was gone until yesterday evening, and Mint.


It isn't really gone, but it's now damned hard to get at.  Microsoft is very determined to protect us from ourselves.  And those who don't know how to work with the Windows Registry really are left out in the cold.  What's more, those who don't really know how to work with he Windows Registry would be well advised not to try.  I've seen disasters created there that could make the current Southern California fires look like 4th of July sparklers in comparison.





> I'm an administrator/data analyst by trade, so of course I have MS Office, and I need to stay in touch with new developments in business software and have some of it at least on my home PC - this laptop.


The extent to which that is a problem really depends upon the degree of formatting the files in question have.  OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice.org (both available for LINUX and Windows and both freeware), can work with ordinary Word and Excel files with little or no problems.  They can open and save in Office file formats.  However, once heavy Office formatting is in place ... particularly embedded graphics ... Office files tend to blow apart in OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice.org.

We at the Vintyri Project create our RPG texts with Word 2016 and turn them into PDFs.  However, we also make our texts available in fully editable form in the OpenOffice/LibreOffice.Writer format .odt, which Word also can process with no problems.  If we tried to keep the original Word-formatting in our conversion, the result would be a disaster area.

----------


## Mouse

Windows is an overprotective parent.  We forget (or if younger, never learn) how to adjust BIOS settings, and so on.  I do agree, however, that messing with the registry is a no-no for me.  BIOS adjustments done with expert guidance here in this thread is as far as I am prepared to go for now.

I'm going to install Mint in a small partition today using the instructions that ChickPea linked to earlier this morning for me, and see how it goes  :Smile: 

I've used all different kinds of text editor in my time, but the main one that businesses in the UK use is Word.  I can use all of them, but I still need to stay up to date with the MS Office apps so that I can just walk into an office, sit down and start work without wondering how to do a thing in the newest version  :Wink:

----------


## ChickPea

Mouse, about software installation... while you're getting started, just head for the software centre (or whatever Mint calls it) and install everything from there. There are other ways, as Straf mentions, but at the beginning, until you find your feet, it'd be simplest to stick with that. You'd search for (for ex) Krita, click install, type your password and it'll download and install it for you. 

I've always used Synaptic for installation. Even though Ubuntu doesn't include it by default now, I can't get out of the habit of using it. I love that, in a new setup, I can select about 20 programs and they'll all install at once (unlike in Windows, where they have to be installed individually.... which takes forever!)

EDIT: good luck with the installation! Report back!!  :Very Happy:

----------


## Mouse

Thank you again, ChickPea  :Very Happy: 

You've been incredibly helpful in the last couple of days.

Everyone has been so wonderfully patient with me and my dunce-level lack of understanding and skill!

And of course I'll let you know how it goes  :Wink:

----------


## Straf

I've just remembered when I used to use Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3 plus there was a presentation/drawing package I used to use as well (I can't think of its name), there were no menus as such, 'commands' were carried out using key combinations. In Lotus it was / and then you put in your formula or whatever it was. In WP there was a little card that you put over the keyboard with the various things on that. F8 to print, Shift-F6 for Bold (I'm just making these up because I've forgotten) that really needed to be remembered if you wanted to do anything with any sort of speed. Word and Excel used to have compatibility with WP and Lotus so you could use the key strokes or slash commands with it.

----------


## Straf

> Mouse, about software installation... while you're getting started, just head for the software centre (or whatever Mint calls it) and install everything from there. There are other ways, as Straf mentions, but at the beginning, until you find your feet, it'd be simplest to stick with that. You'd search for (for ex) Krita, click install, type your password and it'll download and install it for you. 
> 
> I've always used Synaptic for installation. Even though Ubuntu doesn't include it by default now, I can't get out of the habit of using it. I love that, in a new setup, I can select about 20 programs and they'll all install at once (unlike in Windows, where they have to be installed individually.... which takes forever!)
> 
> EDIT: good luck with the installation! Report back!!


With Windows you can use ninite.com to create an executable download and installer for a number of packages. You just select them and then click the button. You can keep this .exe to run if you reinstall your system instead of going off to find everything. It even deselects all the sneaky crap they try to dump on you such as sponsored toolbars and search engine hijacks. Also periodically running it checks for the latest software and if there's newer versions available it'll download and install them.

----------


## selden

> Just thought about something else:
> 
> Will I need antivirus installed on the Mint side of things as well as the Windows side?





> Yes 
> 
> TL;DR version: No.


Unfortunately, it is possible to download malware while running Linux which later can infect Windows. It won't do anything under Linux, but be careful what you transfer to the Windows partition. For just that reason, the Lab where I work runs ESET on all of our platforms: Windows, Linux and MacOS. They all have access to the same network shares, so cross-infection is a serious threat.

Since you seem to be planning to have a minimal Linux partition, it can fill up quickly with junk, causing programs to fail in unexpected ways. Make sure you configure your Linux browser (Chrome, Firefox, or whatever you use) to have a tiny cache.  Linux also creates its own log files of "important" events and you'll need to prune them back regularly, too.  

One of the problems with Linux, although it's been reduced in distros like Mint, is that you have to do a noticeable amount of system management which can be ignored under Windows.

Another option, once you're comfortable dual-booting Linux and have had the chance to get annoyed at the time wasted while rebooting, would be to run your copy of Linux in a VM under Windows. It'd be possible (I won't say easy) to install VirtualBox under Windows and have it run Linux from that partition. The reverse (running Windows in a VM under Linux) is somewhat more difficult because of the way Windows licensing is handled.

----------


## Mouse

Can I cut out a lot of that by staying offline when using Mint?

The way I want to use Mint (just to start with in these next few weeks) is purely as an OS to run GIMP and Krita, which have become an integral part of my mapping process, but which are by degrees becoming more and more difficult for me to use in Windows 10 because of the relatively cumbersome nature of that OS and the way it sucks up all my available RAM with its own system processes.

This incompatibility with the Creator's Update seems, from my point of view, to be largely about how big Win 10 has become.  I mean if it was outright incompatible I probably wouldn't even be able to start my laptop.  I think Win 10 + Creators Update is just too big for my dual core 4GB RAM machine.  That's all.

I saw some evidence of that in the lightning speed of everything I tried when I was booted into Mint yesterday.  I just couldn't believe the speed and power available in GIMP!

Looking further ahead, it is conceivable that further updates to Win 10 may make my life even harder.  At that point I will seriously consider going for a complete Linux system, but with Windows 7 or 8.1 running in a VM - even if that is a bit tricky.  I'm hoping that I will learn enough over time to be competent to manage such a feat when the time has come for me to otherwise abandon Windows.

I'm not afraid of doing the housework, as long as I know what I'm doing  :Wink:

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## Mark Oliva

> This incompatibility with the Creator's Update seems, from my point of view, to be largely about how big Win 10 has become.  I mean if it was outright incompatible I probably wouldn't even be able to start my laptop.  I think Win 10 + Creators Update is just too big for my dual core 4GB RAM machine.  That's all.


That doesn't add up.  If you open up the Windows Task Manager, you'll see that the Windows footprint isn't THAT big.

However ... other applications that are open at the same time can suck up big chunks of memory.  Just two examples:

1)  Outlook 2016 64-Bit, about 150 MB
2)  Firefox 57.0.2 64-Bit 750 MB

That's just 100 MB short of a gigabyte there.

But there's also another possible and even likely slowdown candidate.  We recently replaced an older laptop with an ASUS machine that should give us pretty high performance for a laptop. It also has 32 GB RAM.  Right from the start, it was running slower than molasses in January.  I was just short of returning it to the dealer, who is a personal friend.  But before I passed the problem on to him, I decided to see if I could find it myself.  I didn't have to search for long.  I discovered that ASUS had loaded the machine up with a lot of junk 32-bit ASUS software that I've never used and never will, that it all was loading automatically at boot-up, that it was sucking up a lot of memory in the lower 4 GB and that one ASUS application even checked the Internet once every minute for updates.  As soon as I uninstalled all of that garbage, the computer started running exactly like it should.

I've been avoiding HP for years because of a long record of incompatibility problems, so I have no idea whether HP does the same.  If it does, you might have the same problem and the same cure available.  If this is the case, the HP software won't load under LINUX, just under Windows, where it's installed.

----------


## Straf

That is a point actually. HP have what they call an assistant or something like that that likes to run in the background to busybody about. I've got access to an HP laptop so I'll take a look and see what it is. I know I disabled some of it. Oh and another thing is the antivirus, even though it is past the free trial it still sits there and needs to be fully removed. You probably did all of this when the laptop was new but somehow it has reinstalled itself possibly when Win10 was changing the recovery drive files.

----------


## Mouse

This is ONE of the assistants that I already know are a pain in the neck.



Trouble is, of those assistants there are those which manage the cooling fans and the battery, so I've always thought that they couldn't be uninstalled or my system would run too hot or overcharge the battery, or whatever, and lead ultimately to disaster.

I had no idea that they wouldn't also be running in Linux.

Does Linux have its own fan and battery operating facilities?

EDIT: I think I managed to kill Avast  :Wink:   In Win 10 I'm relying on the inbuilt Windows Defender, which you can see on that list isn't being too much of a pain.

----------


## Mouse

btw - I haven't done the Linux install just yet.  I'm still trying to decide how much space I should give it.

Can the partition be adjusted after the install if I under/overestimate anything?

----------


## Mark Oliva

> This is ONE of the assistants that I already know are a pain in the neck.  Trouble is, of those assistants there are those which manage the cooling fans and the battery, so I've always thought that they couldn't be uninstalled or my system would run too hot or overcharge the battery, or whatever, and lead ultimately to disaster.
> 
> I had no idea that they wouldn't also be running in Linux.


This is a very good and important question.  Unfortunately, I can only guess where one could go from there.  Not being a HP user I had no idea that HP managed the battery and cooling with Windows utilities.

Seeing these are Windows utilities from HP, I can't imagine that anything would load them into LINUX.




> Does Linux have its own fan and battery operating facilities?


I doubt it very much.  I would think that they need to be hardware specific.

However, if I were doing what you're doing, I probably would go to HP's website and see whether a LINUX version of these utilities is available.

----------


## Mouse

Good point.

There are quite a few of them:

----------


## Redrobes

Heh - did you see yesterdays BBC news article ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-42309371

Anyway - I would say that if your HDD is limited then give linux about 2/3 of it and the rest to windows. I would move email, browser to linux and use OpenOffice for most of the stuff too. What you will need from windows will get less and less.

Also likes strafs comment about what linux and windows do when out shopping. Its well weird when you connect up a linux PC to a network and look at your windows and see all the administrator shares for all your drives just sat there when they are hidden on a windows machine. As Mark said. MS tries to protect you from yourself. Its this nanny attitude that drives me crazy. It wont do what you want but does what it wants and shows you what it thinks you want to see not what you asked for.

As for installing apps. You seen the Matrix when Trinity needs to fly a chopper and Neo asks her if she can and she says no not yet and then basically phones back to Tank and says "sudo apt-get install chopper" or something along those lines. Then she can. I might not have recalled the exact correct line quote from the film  :Wink:   Well, thats what using linux is like.

BTW: I dont think you need windows apps to control the HP fan... I think you can normally get the CPU temp from BIOS and also control fan speeds from there. Its built into the motherboard. You might be able to get some control of them if you ask for it but I highly doubt your machine would overheat because some software app failed to run properly.

----------


## Mouse

I did see it, and if I could, I would buy a new non-HP PC before the shops shut today.  Its just not possible for me to do that at the moment  :Frown:   Its enough to make a user feel paranoid about being watched!

I was thinking of keeping the Mint installation as small as possible, since there are only 2 apps that I really want to run on it at the moment.

However, this news about the HP software, and the possibility of being obliged to load similar burdens in Mint, with all the possibilities that it might make Mint just as cumbersome as Windows 10, _just_ because I happen to have an HP laptop...

I need to do a bit of research, and I may need to rethink this approach.

----------


## acrosome

> Can I cut out a lot of that by staying offline when using Mint?


Well, like any virus you'd probably only get one by downloading some sort of file from the internet.  So, don't do that.  It's actually rather difficult for a hacker to get into your Linux system just because you have your browser open, or whatnot.

A lot of Linux users do keep some sort of AV around, so that they can check a file before they post it publicly or send it to a friend who uses Windows.  You can have one that does not constantly run in the background, and just scan the files that you need to.  Heck, there are several free ones.




> The way I want to use Mint (just to start with in these next few weeks) is purely as an OS to run GIMP and Krita, which have become an integral part of my mapping process, but which are by degrees becoming more and more difficult for me to use in Windows 10 because of the relatively cumbersome nature of that OS and the way it sucks up all my available RAM with its own system processes.


Which GUI for Mint are you using?  I presume Cinnamon, since that's the most Windows-like and is usually recommended to new users.  If you _really_ want to cut down on background utilities and memory usage consider Xfce.  It's designed to be very minimalist.  (In fact, it does lack some of the customization features in which you seem to be interested.)  But I believe the 18.3 version of Mint with Xfce is still in beta.  You could just use 18.2 if you wanted- it's still supported until 2021.

All things considered, though, you're fine with Cinnamon.




> I saw some evidence of that in the lightning speed of everything I tried when I was booted into Mint yesterday.  I just couldn't believe the speed and power available in GIMP!


Well, honestly, part of that is just the lightning speed of any new system.  Linux will eventually slow down a bit, too.  You do need to go in a clean out logfiles and whatnot every now and again.  But in my experience it's _never_ as bad as Windows.




> Looking further ahead, it is conceivable that further updates to Win 10 may make my life even harder.  At that point I will seriously consider going for a complete Linux system, but with Windows 7 or 8.1 running in a VM - even if that is a bit tricky.  I'm hoping that I will learn enough over time to be competent to manage such a feat when the time has come for me to otherwise abandon Windows.


I'm a big Linux believer and as I mentioned I eventually went Mac at least in part because OS X is a flavor of Linux, and I _still_ have not defenestrated completely.  Which, frankly, angers me.  My MacBook is dual-booted with Windows 7 solely so that I can run Wilbur.  I'm not exaggerating- it's the only thing I have ever installed on that partition other than the Windows OS itself.  If you have _any_ interest in obscure third-party software (e.g. Wilbur) you will eventually find something that you can only run by running Windows somehow, whether that is dual-boot, a VM, or Wine, or whatever.  The Mac fanatics will claim that you can always find a Mac alternative, but that's a lie.  Never trust a zealot.  I went to the Apple store to get help setting up my dual-boot, since I had zero experience with Mac at that time, and you would not BELIEVE how much those geektards resisted setting up Bootcamp for me.  It took a half hour of debate and eventually me getting VERY angry to break through to them.  "No, the software I want to run does not exist in any form for Mac."  "Have you really _looked_?"  "It's very obscure freeware, and one dude maintains it."  "There has to be another option."  "Do you really want to part ways with your liver that badly?  Because that's where we're headed."  It was the Windows nanny attitude personified.  I lost a bit of respect for Apple that day.

By that point I had gotten so used to doing whatever I wanted in Linux that the attitude grated especially harshly.

----------


## Redrobes

You wont have to install windows apps in mint to make the machine work. And the backdoors are from software running in windows. Basically it was to do with the touchscreen driver. The device driver runs devices. They are built as DLLs which get run with administrator privilage so that any device driver can mess about with your system a lot because they need to. If HP wrote them then they get certified as being ok by Microsoft using whats known as WHQL a windows quality control and they send out a key so that the driver is signed by microsoft and then windows doesnt bitch about it when you try to install a driver that is signed by MS. What appears to have happened is that the drivers have a problem with them that allow remote execution - they are backdoored and it appears as tho this was not picked up in the certification.

So its no issue on mint since mint will run the linux kernel which has loads of driver built into it to run the touchscreen amongst other things. Because all linux is open source then you can look at the source code for any of the drivers so its a lot harder (neigh on impossible) to get backdoors fitted into common drivers and get them installed as default kernel drivers for linux. The kernel will also have a driver for the fan etc.

My opinion is to use Mint as your main OS and use windows to run the odd 2 apps that linux wont run - which is basically how I do it here.

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## Mark Oliva

I've read the last group of replies, but I think an important issue still may be unanswered:

1)  If Mouse is right and the HP utility handles the cooling, what will handle it under LINUX?

2)  If Mouse can't find steering for the cooling in her BIOS, what guarantees for her that her Laptop will have sufficient cooling under LINUX?

Lest I be misunderstood, I have no problem with her going to LINUX or anything else.  Although other manufacturers may do the same and I just don't know about it, I never have heard of processor cooling being delegated to a Windows utility.

However, if I were in Mouse's boat and couldn't afford to go buy a new computer tonight or tomorrow if I blew the current one away, I definitely would want more assurances than she's been given so far ... provided that a Windows utility really steers her cooling.

----------


## Straf

Mouse, check out this article: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/27/hp...metry-service/

And no I highly doubt that the software is controlling the fan - or if it is, bypassing it would allow the motherboard to control the fan like it's supposed to.

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## Straf

Those utilities of HP's are non-essential to the running of the system. They're the equivalent of the trash that motherboard manufacturers ship with their motherboards to control/manage overclocking and the fan speed. The fan will always be managed by the BIOS. Power management is managed by the operating system but there are utilities that can be installed that can do both in a more customised way. You're hardly likely to need these things unless you want to be in control of _everything_ your computer does. Which in that case you should write your own BIOS and operating system code.

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## Mouse

Mark - I think that after reading the article that Straf just linked to I'm uninstalling the one that keeps eating nearly a GB of my RAM.  

Thanks for finding that for me Straf  :Smile: 

As to the question of cooling I can see what _both_ of you are saying.

I think that Straf is probably right about the motherboard and BIOS being in control, or there would be a huge uproar continuously going on in the news about millions of laptops going up in smoke as a result of doing exactly what I'm just about to do.  I also remember having a much older HP before this one that had none of that nonsense going on.  I don't think it even had a documentation folder for HP.

Red - I'm going to do a really small partition to start with.  I do have a lot of Windows dependent software, like Office, and many other apps like Genetica and Scrivener for which I'd have to buy new licenses because I'm not even going to try messing with the registry to move them across to Mint.  I also discovered last night that although I wouldn't have to buy any new licenses for my Profantasy software, and while CC3+ is perfectly functional in WINE, there are little glitch things like font size that may make it awkward for me to share my CC3+ files with other CC3 user in the future.  So I've decided that CC3+ should also remain in Windows.

GIMP and Krita, however, definitely run much better in Mint.  Since I use them in combination with CC3 it would make sense to have all my maps and graphics stored in folders that Windows can also see, like having a shared cabinet in the flat that Straf described that both the flatmates can see and use - which means that there only really needs to be space for the apps themselves in the Mint partition.

I'm still a bit confused about the rest of the settings though.

The note in step 5 of the installation process described in the instructions that ChickPea found for me has me a bit confused about how big to make everything...



Other questions:

Will the installation accidentally overwrite any of my user files?
If I make a mistake or want to change the sizes of things later on, is that going to be possible?

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## Mark Oliva

> Mouse, check out this article: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/27/hp...metry-service/And no I highly doubt that the software is controlling the fan - or if it is, bypassing it would allow the motherboard to control the fan like it's supposed to.


I'm very happy that you posted this and the link ... not knowing myself what kinds of games HP plays and having an extremely difficult time believing that HP steers its fans with Windows Utilities!

Particularly interesting was the following line, which I suspected would be the case.

_Some users reported that the installation slowed down their system significantly, and that removing the application from the system restored the performance._

Good.  I'm not going to tell Mouse what she should do, because she has to live with the results, but if it was my computer, I would disable (and even remove, if possible) the damned thing immediately.  

Thanks again for providing this information!

----------


## Mouse

LOL! Already uninstalled  :Smile:

----------


## Mouse

Well, removing that telemetry app has helped a bit, but things still aren't right with my Windows.  Its still really slow and crashy with non MS apps.  Things like Office are fine, but anything that wasn't bought from MS is unstable.  The only other thing that seems ok is CC3+, but that doesn't really make any kind of demand on the system compared to the bitmap editors like GIMP and Krita.

ChickPea - I'm confused by the diagram in the notes to step 5 in the instructions you linked me to for installing Mint, and I'd rather people tut, roll their eyes and think me a coward for not doing the partition, than ruin the only machine I have to my name by making a critical mistake at that point of the installation.  The rest of it seems easy.  Its just that particular part of the instructions.

I'm going to have a long think about this, and probably seek help from the local repair man, who has presumably seen the result of lots of other people's mistakes when installing Linux on a Windows machine with limited resources, and may even be able to guide me through setting it up without a hitch.  He may even have helped other HP laptop owners.

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## Mark Oliva

> Well, removing that telemetry app has helped a bit, but things still aren't right with my Windows.  Its still really slow and crashy with non MS apps.  Things like Office are fine, but anything that wasn't bought from MS is unstable.  The only other thing that seems ok is CC3+, but that doesn't really make any kind of demand on the system compared to the bitmap editors like GIMP and Krita.


After reading this, I became personally curious about just what's going on and spent some time going through the Microsoft database and Microsoft's forums.  What stands out with several HP Pavilion models after the Windows 10 Fall Creator Edition Update is:

1)  Memory management is bad.   Machines with 4 GB RAM are having their memory swallowed.

2)  The problem models manifest their problems first and foremost in running bit-map based graphic programs.  They also occur with Microsoft Paint and the new 3D Paint.

I also went through the HP forums.  It is apparent that these problems are widespread with owners who have the _"wrong"_ Pavilion models.  I can find no trace anywhere of HP having done anything to help anyone to date.  That help may be there somewhere, but if it is, it's eluded my search attempts.

I'm coming to the conclusion that things probably aren't going to get any better than they are right now.  I don't like saying that, of course, but it appears to be how things are.  I haven't heard Krita mentioned one way or another, but applications that consistently lead to trouble reports are Photoshop and The GIMP.    You mention that Microsoft programs seem to be running OK yet on your machine.  However, the forums also contain a number of crash reports for PowerPoint and also for Word and Excel files that have a heavy JPG or PNG embedded graphic content.

It appears that unless Santa Claus comes down your chimney with a miracle in his bag, things might stay the way they are, I'm sorry to say.

----------


## Mouse

Thank you for trawling through all that information for me Mark  :Smile: 

Maybe the reason that I haven't had any problems with the Office apps you are talking about is because my copy is Office 2013, not 2016?  Most people who own Office can also afford to upgrade it.  I can't.

The other reason could be that I've only used Word and Excel with any regularity, and only then to titivate my CV, do a bit of writing now and then, and create purely functional spreadsheets to solve mathematical problems - nothing graphic.

My situation is such that I can't afford to make any kind of a purchase that isn't food for the foreseeable future, so I think I might struggle to finish my City map and then let it be at that.

EDIT: The one thing that upsets me most of all, is that I keep asking the question: What would it have cost Microsoft to have written a couple of lines of code into their installers that checked the system details of the machine - knowing that Microsoft were fully aware of the problem before they even started writing the updates.  In essence: Why did a multibillion dollar international corporation take it out on me?

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## Mark Oliva

> Maybe the reason that I haven't had any problems with the Office apps you are talking about is because my copy is Office 2013, not 2016?


You probably don't do the level of graphic embedding that some of the users with problems do.  I get the idea that this problem deals with files that are huge ... books filled with graphics, Excel tables filled with a lot of embedded PNG and JPG graphics.  However, Office 2013 and Office 2016 use the same framework for graphics.




> Most people who own Office can also afford to upgrade it.  I can't. The other reason could be that I've only used Word and Excel with any regularity, and only then to titivate my CV, do a bit of writing now and then, and create purely functional spreadsheets to solve mathematical problems - nothing graphic.


I realize that this has no financial priority at present, but it might be of some future value, particularly if it's of value to your CV to show you're up and running with the current version of Office.  Microsoft sells annual subscriptions to Office 365 for prices that I consider reasonable.  Here on the continent it's  69,- a year for one machine and  99,- for 5 machines.  I have the latter, with my license used for the three computers here.  The other two go to the two laptops of my daughter, who's a schoolteacher.

This is not cloud software but rather the full local installation package, with Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, OneNote, etc.  Microsoft keeps your installation always current with updates to new Office versions when they're released.

Again, I know this isn't a current topic for you, but in the future, it might be of value.




> My situation is such that I can't afford to make any kind of a purchase that isn't food for the foreseeable future, so I think I might struggle to finish my City map and then let it be at that.


I've been there already too.  I understand how it is.

----------


## acrosome

> ChickPea - I'm confused by the diagram in the notes to step 5 in the instructions you linked me to for installing Mint, and I'd rather people tut, roll their eyes and think me a coward for not doing the partition, than ruin the only machine I have to my name by making a critical mistake at that point of the installation.


I'm pretty sure that the only way you can destroy your machine is if you have an aneurysm or something during partitioning and tell it to clobber the whole hard drive, in which case you would actually still have a functional machine but you'd lose everything in Windows including all of your files.

However...

I _have_ done Linux installs where afterwards the graphics drivers were so screwed up I only got a black screen.  I would have to go in on the command line to change some settings to at least get a functional window up and then install the proper driver.  Which was a PITA involving a lot of searching forums and copy-pasting "magic words" into the command line.  _Generally speaking_ Mint is less prone to this since they include all of those proprietary-IP drivers, unlike Ubuntu.  But I mention this because HP seems to be a company that really likes to do their own off-the-wall things, and they may use some sort of nonstandard in-house graphics card that will need a driver installed.  (My issues were with Panasonic Toughbooks, and Panasonic also likes to do their own off-the-wall things.)  If any driver is going to be missing, it's going to be one for a single company that likes to be different.

----------


## Mouse

Oh dear.

And to think I was only worried about possibly losing the partition I set aside for Mint if the installation went wrong! (one of the reasons I wanted to keep it as small as possible, since I only have a 500GB disc).

I think I will limp on for a while - finish my City map one tiny 60 second brush stroke after another, see if I can't get a job of some kind that will last longer than 6 weeks, and save up to get a new machine - a non-HP laptop with Mint already installed.  I'm sick to death of both MS and HP.

----------


## acrosome

> And to think I was only worried about possibly losing the partition I set aside for Mint if the installation went wrong! (one of the reasons I wanted to keep it as small as possible, since I only have a 500GB disc).


No, no- seriously, you would have to have a stroke or something to clobber the whole hard drive.  (I was actually trying to be _reassuring_, above.)  Mint's installation wizard is very clear on the matter.  Unless they've changed it dramatically it includes a big bar-graphic showing the partitions that you have chosen.  And, if you get to that point and find it at all confusing, abort the install.  No harm done.

Frankly, someone who has dealt with a Mint install more recently than I have can probably tell you more.  I think my old laptop is running v13 LTS or something.  I haven't broken it out in a while.

For future reference, Dell sells Ubuntu machines.  There is a specialty shop called System76 that does, also.  They're almost the default source, actually, but they are in Denver and I'm not sure about international sales, British keyboards, etc.  (They are having a Holiday Sale right now, too.)  And there is a company called Emperor Linux who specializes in optimized Linux machines of various distros.  He tends to be pricey, though, because he's a one-man shop.  But his tech support is _awesome_.  And he'll dual-boot it for you if you like.

----------


## Mouse

Thanks acrsome  :Smile: 

Don't worry - I doubt I would have gone ahead with this even if you had said nothing at all.  The logical way forward isn't to risk upsetting my HP machine while it is still at least working... after a fashion.  The most logical way forward is to be patient with the situation, save up, and get a better machine that has nothing to do with either MS or HP.  That this plan may take months, _or even years_, is irrelevant.  Having something that half works is a whole lot better than having no money to pay an expert to make it better tomorrow if half the drivers are gone because HP are famous for being... er... unique(?).

LOL!  I'm just not a gambler  :Wink:

----------


## johnvanvliet

> I _have_ done Linux installs where afterwards the graphics drivers were so screwed up I only got a black screen


normally that is NOT a screw up 
and 9.9999999 times out of 10  the Noveau driver works just fine for most people and for the system install 

unless you do not RTFM and try to replace Nouveau with the nvidia driver and  did not read the instructions 

ubuntu and mint can do things a bit differently than Debian 

fedora has a bit of a different set up than redhat 
and suse dose it's own thing - so much so that YOU NEED to RTFM

if you blacklist Nouveau and did not rebuild the boot image after rebooting into text only and reboot again ..........

normally you use the package manager to install the nvidia driver IN your OS's  software repositories 

or

you did not know you have a optimums CPU/GPU combo in the laptop and tried to install the NON bumblebee driver  

as for AMD cards -- i do not use them but the default open driver is AUTO installed as system install 
-- NOT the AMD closed source driver from the AMD web site 

if you want to use that one you ALSO need to rebiuld the boot image

----------


## selden

Mouse, 

It seems to me to be quite reasonable to go on as you have been, booting Linux from an external drive and Windows from the internal disk. There's no need to install Linux internally except for whatever convenience that might provide. If you have a spare thumb drive, you might consider installing Linux on that instead of always booting the "Live" version, but only because that would make it somewhat more convenient to install software permanently. Having Linux on an external drive also means that you aren't tied so tightly to your current hardware. Just plug you copy of Linux into whatever new computer you get (or old computer that you might have put in a closet and forgotten about) and you're off and running.

----------


## Mouse

Selden - the thumb drive is presumably what I'm calling a memory stick?

The live boot does not allow me to save files on either it, or the hard drive, so its only a demo as far as I can see - that and an invitation to install it properly.  I will google 'install mint on thumb drive' and see what's what.  Atm the largest one I have is only 15 GB, which I don't think is large enough for the job.

I'm managing to work a bit on my City map in Krita at about half the speed I was working on it before  :Wink:

----------


## selden

Right, sorry, yes. I guess it's a difference between US and UK dialects:  It's a (USB Flash disk) drive the size and shape of your thumb.  To me, "memory stick" also could be taken to mean an SD memory card: same technology but different form factor and connections.

15 GB might be big enough, depending on how much is in the Live disk and whether or not its individual files get decompressed. A minimal Linux can be a lot smaller than Windows.  Why, I remember when... 1GB was _more_ than enough for everything!

On the other hand, a maximal version, with all possible graphics utility programs, can be gigantic.

----------


## Mouse

I remember thinking my Atari 520ST was just the most powerful and beautiful thing on Earth  :Razz: 

Yes - you're right.  I miss-typed above.  Its a 16GB thumb drive  :Smile:

----------


## acrosome

> normally that is NOT a screw up 
> and 9.9999999 times out of 10  the Noveau driver works just fine for most people and for the system install 
> 
> unless you do not RTFM and try to replace Nouveau with the nvidia driver and  did not read the instructions 
> 
> ubuntu and mint can do things a bit differently than Debian 
> 
> fedora has a bit of a different set up than redhat 
> and suse dose it's own thing - so much so that YOU NEED to RTFM
> ...



[Backs away slowly, speaking in a soft voice...]

Whoa there, Jon.

As I said, the only time I had any issue at all was with weird hardware- Panasonic Toughbooks.  The wizard didn't work; I did not try to install any sort of driver that the wizard didn't do automagically.  And after some screwing around and (as you put it) RTFM I actually _fixed_ the problem with a Nvidia driver IIRC.  Wait, or was it?  I know I _tried_ a Nvidia driver at some point but maybe it didn't work either.  Hell, I can't remember.  So, to recap: long time ago, weird hardware, problem fixed easily enough.

Switch to decaf, brother.   :Smile: 

The Tigers suck.   :Razz: 

Oh, and thanks yet again for that help with the Venus maps!  You're awesome.

----------


## ladiestorm

Ouch!...  my current laptop is an HP... but it had Win 10 on it when I bought it.  Of course, I don't have a Wacom tablet (I assume these are laptops where you can remove the screen to become a tablet).

I've actually been thinking about checking into removing Windows 10 from my laptop and installing XP, or 7.  I admit, I DO NOT like Windows 10... the OS is so big, it's slow on general principles.

I will keep this in mind when the next OS comes out... because if your HP isn't compatible with Windows 10, mine will probably be incompatible with the next Microsoft Program that comes out.

----------


## Mouse

Hi Storm  :Smile: 

Its only certain models that are incompatible with it.  Since yours came with Win 10 preinstalled its likely that you will be perfectly fine.  And if it isn't, then take it back to whoever sold it to you and demand a refund!

Not all Wacom tablets are screen devices.  Mine is just a flat black pad about A5 size that plugs in via a USB port.  Its a bit like having a very large touch pad that you draw on with a special pen.  Its not terribly useful in CC3, but I would be lost without it in GIMP and Krita these days.

----------


## Mouse

Oh I am a dolt!

Of course the drivers in Mint are going to be fine for the display and everything.  The live boot wouldn't have worked if they weren't.

This was a point made by Monsen, over on the PF site.

I didn't know whether to blush or die laughing at myself  :Razz: 

So now its all about size - what numbers to put in this thing when it appears

What I want to do:

Run Krita and GIMP (maybe also Blender and other graphics apps that are RAM hungry) in as small a Mint partition as is feasible for the job.

All user files will continue to be created and stored in the Windows partition.

Anyone brave enough to suggest any numbers?

----------


## Non Serviam

*bites bullet*

Allow 50GB hard drive space for Mint plus recommended graphics programs (don't forget to install Inkscape as well as GIMP, Blender and Krita!)

----------


## Mouse

Thank you, Non Serviam  :Smile: 

Anyone else got a bid?

EDIT: Sorry if I have upset anyone by pinching the image to show it here, but I can't explain what I mean when I say I'm confused without looking at it directly.



Remember that I'm such a dunce I don't understand really what any of those things are.  Straf has very kindly tried to explain them to me in a PM, but I'm afraid its all still a muddle in my head.  There are 4 figures I have to work out on that screen.

Eg, if I decide to go for 50GB partition, what figure would I put in which of those 4 places above?  And then what about the rest.

(for anyone who's forgotten I have 4GB RAM and a 500GB disc)

----------


## acrosome

Ignore Linux-Swap for now, just leave it as it is.  It's a sort of virtual memory and 8GB is fine, I think.

NTFS is the current standard Windows filesystem; it is proprietary, and it replaced the older FAT and HPFS if you are familiar with those.  But as you now know, Linux can read it.  In fact, Linux can read most filesystems.

Obviously *DO NOT* check the "format" toggle next to the NTFS partitions or you will clobber them.

EXT4 is the Linux filesystem.  Windows cannot read it.

So as shown, you are making your Linux partition 1.5TB and your Windows partition 524GB.  If that's what you want to do, drive on.  

But are you _sure_ that you only have a 500GB disk?  Because that says 2.0TB ATA drive.  I think you have a 2TB drive, Sister.  I wonder if you were only using a 524GB partition for Windows already.  If that was indeed the case Windows would only "see" the 524GB partition and would have told you that that's how big the drive is.  Did you buy the computer used or something?

I'm not sure why that little 105MB Windows partition is there, but I assume that it is something that already exists on your system and the Wizard is just preserving it.  It says that it is "Windows 7 loader", whatever the hell that is.

You backed up everything truly important, right?   :Smile:

----------


## Mouse

That's the example image from the installation instructions, not my system.  I wish mine was even half as big as that one

So if I'm getting this right in my head now (sigh... I'm so slow at this), the top three will just automatically appear with the right numbers in them because they already exist, and the only one I really need to mess around with is the one that's highlighted in green?

How many MB in 40 GB?  (so I can put the exactly right number in that green slot).  I think that should be enough for a couple of years while I'm saving up for a bigger computer.

is it 1000 x 40?  I don't understand why there is such an odd number in that example - '1468005'.  What's that all about?

----------


## acrosome

OK, now I'm tracking- not your system.  So you'll probably have THREE partitions to worry about**: NTFS, Linux-Swap, and EXT4.

No, you'll have to tell the system how large you want your partitions.  Because right now Windows takes up your entire drive.  It looks like you highlight one in green then click the "change" button, and you'll be able to enter the partition size that you want.  Or maybe you can grab and slide the bar graph.

The mega-, giga- tera-byte thing is _approximately_ a x1000 difference.  But not perfectly.  To be perfectly accurate a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, for technical reasons, so the numbers aren't perfect multiples of 1000.  And megabyte is 1048576 bytes.  Any answer you get to "How many bytes in a megabyte" is going to depend upon how much of a purist the person you asked is.  They are pretty close though.

EDIT-- hang on, I'll go find the Mint 18.3 installation instructions...

EDIT AGAIN---  Here is a video of an installation alongside of an existing Windows 10 installation.  The interface in the video, at least, lets you just grab and slide the bar graph.  It looks very different to what you posted, though.   It's at 0:56 in the video.  They made the user interface pretty idiot-proof; it doesn't even _show_ the swap partition, but if you want to monkey with it there is an "advanced partition management" button.  Maybe the picture that you posted above was that?  

So... just use the easy system.   :Smile:

----------


## ChickPea

Hey Mouse, I did a little bit of googling and I found this vid that might be helpful...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxepmtjmilQ

In the first couple of minutes, he shows how to make a new partition in Windows (something I'd forgotten you could do). I think it'll be much simpler if you do it that way, as you'll know exactly where to put Mint. You can skip the BIOS bit in the vid, since you've figured that out already. At 6.00mins, he shows the partitioning bit, and it's much more straightforward when you have a chunk already marked 'free space'. Does that help to simplify things a little? 

Towards the end, he uses another utility that I hadn't heard of before which switches the bootloader back to the Windows one, but with Linux added manually. You might want to do this too, though it isn't necessary. Do you remember before I'd said about some people wiping their Linux partition then their system wouldn't start? What he does here would get around that, so if you change your mind and want to reclaim the space, you can easily just reformat the partition and all the Linux stuff would be gone. However, it's not strictly necessary if you plan to keep Mint. Linux installs its own bootloader which will recognise both Linux and Windows installations.

About sizing, I just checked my installation properly tonight and it seems to have swollen up to 10gb. That's for my operating system and all programs. My own files are separate. So if you went for 50gb, that would leave at least 40gb for personal data files (assuming our installations are broadly similar - allow a gb or two either way!)

The odd numbers are because there are 1024mb in a gb. Just round everything off. It doesn't really matter.

----------


## acrosome

But then she might have to do "advanced partition management."  I think she's just better off using the Mint installation wizard.

My $0.02.

40GB should be plenty.  Heck, you just plan to save all of your working files to the NTFS partition anyway, right?  And if you change your mind later I'm pretty sure that Mint comes with a partition manager.

I'm pretty sure that Mint is going to default to an 8GB swap partition, though, so you'll lose that, too.  So maybe make the EXT4 partition 32GB?

----------


## Mouse

ROTFL!  acrsome - I nearly wet myself laughing when I realised you thought idiot-proof was also 'Mouse proof'!  A thing has to be a lot tougher than idiot proof to be indestructible when I'm around  :Razz:   'Mouse logic' defies logic!

Thank you both for your superhuman efforts to try and get me launched.  At this rate I might just manage to do it right.

I will watch both videos with equal interest  :Very Happy: 

EDIT:  Aaaaaah!  So that's what happens.  I was wondering where this swap file thing came into it.  Thank you!!!  Based on ChickPea's practical experience, and the fact that I won't be storing any user files in the Mint partition, I think I might go even lower than that - down to 25GB (not including the swap file)?

I'll watch the videos  :Wink:

----------


## ChickPea

I think that video I linked to uses a slightly older version of Mint, so it's possible the installer may have been tweaked slightly, but the basics will still be the same. So long as you're able to recognise your Windows installation - and don't touch those partitions! - you can't really go wrong. 

I think you should be OK with a 25gb partition, so long as you aren't using it for personal stuff. There's conflicting advice about swap size. I've heard some say you should set it to the same size as the amount of RAM you have, and others say double. I just checked mine out of curiosity, and it's only at 8gb though I have 16gb RAM. I can't even remember setting it up. Probably drunk when I did it!  :Razz:

----------


## acrosome

For swap I once heard "At least your RAM size, but not more than 8GB, because if you need more than 8GB there's something wrong with you."   :Smile: 

So obviously opinions differ.  The guy in ChickPea's video made his 3GB.

Really, I would not install the way ChickPea's video shows, by partitioning in Windows first.  If you're just a wee shaky on partitions and file sizes I can't imagine using the "advanced partition management" installation.  Hell, it scares me and I've done it before.  Just let the Mint installation wizard do your partitioning.

The minimum install size on those videos is 10GB.  So add a little space for GIMP and whatnot and that's all you need, really, if you're going to be saving files to your NTFS partition.

----------


## Mouse

LOL! ChickPea!  I just can't imagine even being able to FIND my laptop when I'm drunk, never mind the on button  :Razz: 

EDIT:  Its ok, acrsome.  As you may already have noticed I don't do anything in a hurry without really thinking about it, and I'm not going to hold anyone responsible if it doesn't work right or I'm unhappy with the result.  I doubt I shall be, though.

I've just increased the free space on my hard drive from 150GB to 221GB, (of 444GB usable).  I think the drive is already partitioned - the rest being taken by the 'recovery disk' that's always been there.  Even more reason to keep this as small and as tight as possible.  I did that, btw, just going through all my old map folders and deleting all the WIP images.  A staggering 71GB of unnecessary data!  Feeling much better that I've just removed all the crap and its left a space more than twice the size of the planned Mint partition.

btw - my autocorrect keeps adding an 'o' to your username for some strange reason acrsome.  Many apologies for any that I miss!

----------


## ChickPea

> Really, I would not install the way ChickPea's video shows, by partitioning in Windows first.  If you're just a wee shaky on partitions and file sizes I can't imagine using the "advanced partition management" installation.  Hell, it scares me and I've done it before.  Just let the Mint installation wizard do your partitioning.


Hehe I always do the full-on manual partitioning, because my system is ridiculously complicated and the regular setup doesn't cut it. I think I've made every mistake that it's possible to make over the years (I did a LOT of distro-hopping in my early days with Linux) and god knows how many times I borked grub and my system wouldn't start. Fun times!  :Very Happy:  Having said that, I've always a second machine (or a phone) so I've been able to google stuff and figure it out. I understand Mouse's hesitancy. 

I can't really speak to the wisdom of using the Windows partitioner vs the Linux one. The vid did seem simple and it was obvious where to put the Mint installation. That was the main reason for suggesting it. But, of course, that's me speaking as someone who's very familiar with the installer and what's involved. It's hard to put myself in the shoes of a complete beginner again.

Mouse, we'll all drink to your Linux success ... when it happens. Don't let us down! :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:

----------


## selden

> F
> The minimum install size on those videos is 10GB.  So add a little space for GIMP and whatnot and that's all you need, really, if you're going to be saving files to your NTFS partition.


In other words, if you want to try out the installation process without touching your Windows disk, using a 16GB thumb drive/memory stick would be fine.

----------


## Mouse

I haven't found out how to do it on a stick.

Ummm... maybe I should re-word that a bit  :Razz: 

I mean, do you know how to install Mint on a stick?

----------


## acrosome

> btw - my autocorrect keeps adding an 'o' to your username for some strange reason acrsome.  Many apologies for any that I miss!


Well, actually it _is_ supposed to be acrosome, with an 'o'.  I, uh, had a typo when I set up my account here.   :Confused: 

I've been using that username since university.

----------


## Mouse

Do you know that if you ask Redrobes _really_ nicely he _might_ be able to put that right for you?

Purely selfish reasons for suggesting it.  Its hard remembering to keep going back and make sure I've taken all the 'o's out!   :Razz:

----------


## selden

Mouse,

I have to admit I've never tried to install Linux on a memory stick/thumb drive, although I have experience installing Scientific Linux in a VM on my Windows 7 computer.

"To first approximation", there shouldn't be anything special: it's just a small disk that's happens to be connected to your computer by USB.

Searching Web...   Here's a preliminary discussion about installing Mint on a 32GB stick:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=205310

It looks like the novice in that thread just stopped asking questions, although the expert who was trying to help had done it many times.

AHA! Here's a silent video created earlier this year showing how to do it. Instructions appear in a text window. Its author recommends using a 32GB stick, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NHWpi7cQxQ

He's running from a Live Mint USB stick, creating a full Mint USB stick on a computer that has Windows on an internal hard drive. That sounds familiar  :Smile:

----------


## Mouse

Oh thank you!  :Very Happy: 

I shall have to break out the popcorn to watch all these videos.

Thank you very much everyone.

----------


## Mark Oliva

> I've actually been thinking about checking into removing Windows 10 from my laptop and installing XP, or 7.


I'd strongly urge you *not* to install Windows XP.  It's no longer supported and updated by Microsoft, and there are a number of malware programs that slip through XP's holes these days.  With the amount of Internet activity that you do, that's playing with fire.

Windows 7 was a good Windows version.  It's a better choice.  But before you do that, ask yourself if you know how to install Windows 7 with all of the necessary HP drivers, etc.  If not, you may end up being sorry that you ever considered switching OSs.




> I admit, I DO NOT like Windows 10... the OS is so big, it's slow on general principles.  I will keep this in mind when the next OS comes out... because if your HP isn't compatible with Windows 10, mine will probably be incompatible with the next Microsoft Program that comes out.


It isn't a question of new Microsoft programs but rather of Windows updates.  See earlier entries in this thread on how to disable automatic Windows updating.  I don't remember how much RAM you have, but upgrading your memory will help with speed if you're using 64-bit programs.  It won't help you with 32-bit CC3+.

Also see earlier postings in this thread regarding disabling possibly unnecessary HP utilities that you may never use.  These things can swallow a lot of memory.  Another thing that doesn't help is keeping your Internet browser open in the background when you're working on something else.  Browsers swallow a big chunk of memory.  

If you don't like Windows 10 and you want to install Windows 7, go right ahead, but if you're doing that mostly for speed's sake, keep in mind that Windows 7 is slower than Windows 10.

Servus,

----------


## Mouse

I agree with Mark, Storm

One of the reasons I'm not going down the road of re-installing Windows 8.1 is because of all the horrible things that can go wrong - even though my machine came with it preinstalled.

For a start you have to reinstall ALL your apps, and that's everything, not just CC3 and its add ons, but every little thing you've grabbed online or bought and may have lost the disc to since you got the machine.

And that's only if it goes right  :Frown: 

I'd rather risk partitioning my disk and adding a more efficient OS to run the apps I need that aren't working very well with Win 10.

You didn't say if it was taking you half an hour to save a file, or if your apps were freezing and crashing unexpectedly, or if Win 10 was shutting other apps down around you without your permission when you were doing something a bit thirsty on RAM in GIMP or whatever.  Unless these things are actually happening to you, I'd leave it all well alone for now.

Like I said - its not ALL HP Laptops.  Only some of them.  I just happen to be unlucky in that I own one that's affected.  If you go back to the first comment I made in this thread there is a link to a page that lists the models that are certified as 'compatible'.  Even if your machine doesn't appear on that list, if you aren't having any of these problems then you are still probably ok.

I have to go out this morning, so I don't have time to look back through the thread for this, but there may be a telemetry app of HP's that you can start by uninstalling, since it swallows nearly a GB of RAM for no benefit to the user at all.  We discussed it a few pages back, and I uninstalled it.  No harm done - more RAM restored to me, the rightful owner of that RAM.

----------


## Mouse

Bad news, I'm afraid.

It failed to install properly.

I've just lost 32GB of my hard drive, and I'm still stuck trying to make a map in Krita on a system that can't cope with it.

Anyone know how I might reclaim that lost partition - even though Windows can't see it?

Going to get some sleep now...

----------


## Azélor

I know there are Linux reader software to read the Linux partition available but i don't remember which one I used in the past.

----------


## Straf

How did it fail to install? What is it saying? Are there any errors it's throwing up?

----------


## Mouse

I went all the way through without a hitch.  When I got to the very last bit and hit 'restart', I think I must have pulled the boot stick out a couple of seconds too fast... or something.  I really don't know.

When I boot I just get windows.

I'm not really interested in making it work - only in getting rid of it.

Would a complete reinstall of Win 8.1 solve the problem, or would the partition still be there?

----------


## Mouse

OK.

(I've edited this comment three times btw)

I've found out how to remove a partition  :Smile: 

I wouldn't recommend using it unless you know exactly which partition is which.  Fortunately for me I know exactly how big I made the partition, and I can see that there are actually 2 partitions, which, when the GB are added together make up that exact same size.  It seems that when you install Mint 'alongside Windows' it actually generates not one, but two partitions.

----------


## Straf

Ah it hasn't set up GRUB for some reason. I'll take a look.

----------


## Mouse

I saw Grub in the list of folders and files and things that it was installing.  I think I upset it by pulling the stick out at the wrong time.

I'm just going to get rid of these useless partitions first. 

I re-downloaded the ISO file and the bit of software that creates the boot stick last night.  The second copies were identical in size to the first time I downloaded them, so I don't think there was a download glitch, even though the ISO is 1.8GB and takes about 2 hours to download.

Having ruled that out as a potential problem, I have recreated my boot stick.  Now I'm going to get rid of the partitions that were made by the installation that went wrong, and give it a second try.

If it doesn't work the second time around I'm going to stop trying.  I think continually creating and erasing partitions is probably causing a lot of wear and tear on the disc.

----------


## ChickPea

Mouse, I might be too late with this now, but can you boot with the USB stick into the 'live' try-out version of Mint (what you used before you installed it). You should be able to navigate to the folders on your hard drive (don't confuse them with the USB folders). You should be able to see there that Linux has installed. It sounds an awful lot like something's gone wrong with grub (the bootloader) rather than the installation.

When you did the installation, did you wait till you saw the message at the end saying 'Please remove the installation media' (that might not be the exact wording - I can't quite recall - but it something along those lines).

EDIT: Anything in this thread help. Their situation sounds very similar...

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=249148

----------


## Mouse

Hi ChickPea

I just attempted my second install.  This time I gave it a bit more space because I know I can get rid of it if it doesn't work again.

It didn't work again.

There wasn't any 'remove the boot stick' message to be seen.  I didn't think there was the first time around, and I was watching all the way through both times.  The first time I did this I removed the stick when the screen went blank after clicking 'restart'.  That did actually do some damage to the stick, apparently, which is why I re-created the boot stick before trying again.

The second time I just left the stick exactly where it was and allowed the machine to restart - knowing it would restart from the boot stick because I hadn't been asked to take it out, and it was still in the machine.  Once it was rebooted on the boot stick I shut down the proper way and only then removed the stick.

When I rebooted again I got Windows, and no option to choose which OS

Thinking about this, there's no reason why the installation should have gone wrong, and the partitions that have been created are right there where they are supposed to be, and exactly the right size together.

I'm thinking... what if the adjustments to the BIOS that I made before the installation are affecting whether this GRUB thing starts?

I will have a read of that thread, but before I do that I'm just going to have a look at the boot order...

----------


## ChickPea

Yeah, I'm thinking there's nothing wrong with your Linux installation. It's that the laptop is looking in the wrong place for the OS. It's finding Windows and booting from that. That thread suggests some BIOS tweaks and that might be where the issue is. 

Remember before when you were trying to boot from the USB and you had to hit a key a number of times? Was that to get into the BIOS or was it to launch a boot order menu. For instance, in my machine, I can press F12 repeatedly when I switch it on, and I'll get a boot menu and I can select a different thing to boot from (eg a USB drive, the Windows boot loader, a second hard drive etc.) Is there anything like that on your machine, just a quick thing to try?

----------


## Mouse

I just read that thread you linked to, and it seemed to be telling me that I could edit the actual OS boot Manager option in BIOS.  The thing is that I tried it, and there were no options to edit it.  So it might work on some machines, but not mine.

I will go off again and boot from the stick to see if I can find the newly installed Mint folder system (not the one on the stick), just to be sure that the installation really did work.

----------


## Mouse

And here's proof that the installation worked.



That's the 50GB partition I created in the second installation.  You can see that it automatically sub-partitions 4GB (equal to the size of my RAM), presumably to create a swap file.  That's why its showing as 46GB.

I am inclined to agree with one of the comments I saw on that thread, whether its true or not, it really does seem as if HP and MS have contrived to make it so damn difficult to create a dual boot system that most people give up.

However, I can live with this the way it is, if booting from the stick enables me to actually install new apps like Krita (which isn't included in Mint the way GIMP is), and work with the entire collection of system folders - Window included.

I didn't try it just now, but I confess to being more than a little bit tired.

Do you think there will be any problems with always using the stick to gain access to the Linux folders on my system?

----------


## ChickPea

You can run it from the USB stick, but it's always going to be slower. I'm trying to google just now for you to see if I can find a solution.

In your BIOS, have you got it set to legacy boot mode or UEFI? Whichever it is, try changing it to the other one and see if anything happens. (do this with your USB unplugged, so that it's booting from the hard drive only). You can always go back into the BIOS and change it back, so you're not going to break anything.

----------


## Mouse

LOL! I forgot what you said while I was busy re-examining the BIOS (only have one machine).

This is an annotated shot of the BIOS as is:



EDIT: I will now go and see if I can switch to Legacy boot  :Smile:

----------


## Straf

Try changing 'Legacy Support' to enabled.

----------


## Mouse

I'm in  :Smile: 

I changed the 'Legacy Support' to enabled, but...

Its not a straightforward start up.

As I remember it (I'm here now so I'll just try to remember it for you), I pressed the on button and got a black screen with a little prompt at the bottom saying 'press esc to get start menu'.  It takes you to a  list of available OS, two of which were identical 'Ubuntu...etc' directly beneath the OS Boot Manager (which I presume would have taken me to Win 10 because that's what it does anyway).

I selected the top Ubuntu of the two in the list and pressed enter. then Mint started up and asked me for my password.

So here I am - working in my installation of Mint  :Smile: 

I'm happy with this, even though its a clunky way of starting up.

Lets face it - I'm never going to be selling this machine, as its the only one I've got for a couple of years yet, so the only thing that matters is that I know how to use either of the OSs on my system  :Smile:

----------


## Mouse

Die laughing....

MS just sent me a customer satisfaction survey thing, asking if I would recommend Win 10 to my friends.....


hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...... oh my sides hurt!  hahahahahahahahah..........

----------


## Mouse

I'd just like to thank all of you again for your outstanding support in this matter.

_You're simply the best_  :Smile:

----------


## ChickPea

I'm glad you've got it working, Mouse.  :Smile: 

I don't think the ip4/6 stuff you highlighted in your pic is relevant. I think that's related to network booting, not something we're doing here. I think up nearer the top where it says 'Legacy support' might be more relevant.

One thing to try is the update grub command. Now if your BIOS isn't set correctly, this won't make much difference, but there's a small chance it might help. You need to open a terminal (yes, straight to the command line!). Press Ctrl+Alt+T and the terminal should open. Then type...

*sudo update-grub*

It'll ask you for your password. Type it (nothing will show on screen) then press enter. Grub will scan your system for all OSs and update itself. I'm not certain this will make any difference if the BIOS settings are screwy, but it's worth a short.

----------


## Mouse

I will try that ChickPea...

I think I spoke too soon when I declared success.

I tried to look at the Windows files from Mint and this is what I've got:



I'm all worn out now, so I'm going to take a break for a couple of hours.  It looks like I'm going to have to switch it back to the way it was before - legacy disabled and no direct Mint access.

If I can't get this to work properly I may have to give up on all but the smaller maps.

----------


## ChickPea

No, I don't think this is necessarily a big issue. Windows uses a thing called 'fast boot' which allows it to shutdown and restart quickly. You need to disable that. It might take Windows a little longer to start each time you use it, but it gives you the advantage of sharing folders.

Here's more info, or just skip down the article to the bit about how to turn it off...

https://www.howtogeek.com/243901/the...-startup-mode/

EDIT... it's _possible_ fast boot may be interfering with your start up problems too. Either way, try disabling it.

----------


## Straf

Yeah, I thought we'd already disabled that a while ago. Maybe not. Fast boot is the thing that sends Windows into hibernate rather than shut down completely. It can cause havoc if you 'shut down' and then your battery runs out. Fast boot isn't that fast either, given that it's all the faffing about that Windows does that takes up all of the time.

----------


## Mouse

You were right  :Smile: 

I disabled the fast boot, and now I can see all the Windows folders and get to all my existing artwork from Mint without having to move it around.  I can also see a whole load of other stuff that Win 10 usually hides from me.  I guess that's the knickers you were talking about Straf  :Razz: 

Haven't tried rebooting Win 10 just yet.  It will be interesting to see just how slow it is.

I'm going to do that sudo thing you suggested before I close Mint, and see if I get a better startup experience - thanks ChickPea  :Smile:

----------


## Mouse

Hurrah!

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

And it only took 4 minutes (I timed it on my phone) to boot Win 10... which is about what it took before I turned Fast Boot off anyway.  That's how annoying Win 10 had become on this particular laptop.

I now officially have a dual boot laptop  :Very Happy: 

The sudo command didn't change the startup sequence any, but I am perfectly happy with things the way they are now.

THANK YOU *Big hug and kiss*  :Very Happy:

----------


## ChickPea

YAY!!!  :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:  High fives to all Linux geeks everywhere, now including Mouse! 

Your next map must feature penguins!  :Razz:

----------


## Mouse

Penguins.... Hmmmm....

I was working on District 15 of the Guild City Community Project before I finally had to admit that waiting 30-45 minutes for gradient fills and save operations to complete just wasn't on, and I'd hit a brick wall with Win 10.  

As part of the Guild City project we've been hiding Chashio's little dragon, Waldo, in our maps for a bit of fun.

A dragon AND penguins?

I'll have to think about that  :Razz:

----------


## Straf

The penguin is because Tux the penguin is Linux's mascot.

----------


## ChickPea

Haha, well, maybe a few penguin feathers sticking out of Waldo's mouth?!

I hope Mint works better for you than Win10. There are other distros that are more light-weight than Mint, and so will use even less system resources, though they aren't quite as pretty. But... baby steps!  :Wink:

----------


## Mouse

So I gathered.  Cheerful little chappy isn't he  :Smile: 

You know how getting bogged down in something like this is kind of depressing, and you don't feel at all hungry?

Well, now that its all working and I can carry on mapping...

I'm STARVING HUNGRY!

I just have to go and get some dinner!  LOL!  :Laughing: 

EDIT: ninjad by ChickPea!  Now, that feathers in the mouth idea is just BRILLIANT  :Razz: 

And I'm glad I started with one of the easier distros!  Jus tin case you are wondering it is at least 4 x as fast.  Working on the very same City file just now it only took a couple of minutes to complete each Gradient fill as I adjusted the colours of the background, and only a couple of minutes to save the file.

I absolutely have to go and get some dinner now before I start chewing on my keyboard!

----------


## Straf

There used to be one that ran from a floppy disk. If it still exists it's probably not all that useful other than novelty value or running some diagnostics or similar these days.

----------


## Mouse

Oh don't!  I don't want to admit that I'm old enough to know what a floppy is!  

But I have to confess to missing the large collection I had in all kinds of rainbow colours for my Atari 520ST  :Blush:   :Laughing:

----------


## Non Serviam

What a heartwarming thread.   :Smile:   Yes, I'm old enough to remember the ST (although I was an Amiga bloke).  I'm also old enough to remember the ZX-81... am I the only person who used to play Mazogs for hours on end?  :Smile: 

I became a Linux Mint convert a few years ago: when I bought a new laptop.  It was pre-infected with Windows 8, and this was the original base-model Windows 8 before they patched it to semi-slightly-work.  Well, Windows 8 lasted just under 3 minutes of actual use, and then it stayed on my machine about another 4 hours while I googled and browsed about working out how to install Linux.  Then it went and I haven't run Windows since.  (I do use Windows programs under a Windows emulator for Linux called Wine.  Unfortunately I can't seem to make it run Wilbur.)

Reading your most recent post got me thinking ahead to when it's time for you to replace your machine.

About two months ago I bought a new desktop.  I designed it from scratch as a specialist machine for a Linux-Mint-addicted RPG/worldbuilding nerd, and I got a firm in Cheshire called computerplanet.co.uk to make it and ship it to me.  The box cost me just under £800, delivered to my door (and that price included both the monitors, so the box itself was what we Londoners call "well cheap") -- all I had to do was install the operating system and a couple of proprietary drivers.  I can heartily recommend going about it that way rather than toddling along to Curry's and buying whatever rubbish they have on sale: it's not just that you get enormously more bang for your buck (although you do), it's also that you get components you know are going to play nicely with your operating system.

We ought to have a thread where we show our setups.  Map-caves?

----------


## Mouse

That sounds like a fun idea - making a map of your work cave and adding a short description of the tools in use (not too long).  It might prove to be quite helpful for some of the newbies to know how specialised (or patched up and held together with string in my case) a lot of our systems really are  :Razz: 

I found a new use for an odd sock the other day.  Reception is pretty bad in this village, so I stuffed the dongle thing (its a wireless mobile gadget) in a pop sock (knee high stocking), made a small hole for the charger cable, and tied the sock around the curtain rail.  Works really well  :Very Happy:

----------


## Straf

Just make sure you take your foot out of it first though  :Razz:

----------


## selden

> (I do use Windows programs under a Windows emulator for Linux called Wine.  Unfortunately I can't seem to make it run Wilbur.)


That's because WINE Is Not an Emulator. (Note that it's a self-referential acronym, just like Linux -- Linux Is Not UniX.)

Rather Wine effectively provides a set of Windows system runtime calls which are translated into equivalent Linux system calls. Unfortunately, it seems that Wilbur uses system calls that WINE doesn't provide. In principle Wine could be enhanced to support Wilber, but someone would have to determine what's missing and implement it.

----------


## Straf

I think johnvanvliet had Wilbur working under Linux. The difficulty is that Wilbur requires a Microsoft runtime environment or something to work, and getting it to do so under Linux takes a bit of extra work.

----------


## Non Serviam

Hm.  Wilbur would be useful.  I used to use it a fair bit back in my Windows days.

----------


## Mouse

Loosing stuff like that, and all the Windows apps I've bought is why I aimed for dual boot, rather than completely getting rid of Windows.

I hear you can run windows itself in Linux.  Would you be able to run Wilbur in Windows in Linux?

----------


## Straf

In a virtual machine? Possibly. Of course you'd need a licence to do so, although Windows 10 seems to be available as a trial these days.

----------


## Mouse

Since I already have a Windows licence, that kind of appeals to me.  A sort of small revenge - to capture the OS that nearly ruined mapping for me, in a Linux cage where it can't get its nasty little tentacles on my RAM  :Razz:

----------


## acrosome

Ok, what had I said about companies that like to do their own 'special' thing?   :Smile:   Well, and of course the machinations of the Evil Empire (tm), Microsoft.  (Not that Apple is much better, nowadays.)   Standards are a _good_ thing, not something to be hunted down and exterminated to increase market share.

At least now I know to avoid HP like the plague.

Congratulations, Mouse!

----------


## Mouse

Thanks Acrosome  :Smile: 

I couldn't have done any of this without yours and everyone else's help in this thread.  I'm really quite stupid when it comes to computers.  Girls weren't allowed near the only one in school when I was that age.  It was a 'boys club' - to be allowed to produce lots of tape with holes punched in it.  If only I'd known back then that it would all explode into what we have today!  I might have been more persistent about wanting to be involved with it.

HP used to be a really reputable company, and still are as far as hardware quality goes.  I've had loads of computers in my time.  Some of them have simply stopped working, and one even caught fire.  The only ones that have never ever broken down and been passed on to friends each time I bought a new one were the HP laptops.  This is my fourth HP laptop.  I really regret having to say this, but now that MS have become such control freaks about how much control they impose on the user through the OS, and now that HP architecture has proven to be so uniquely difficult about playing ball with the user, it does look like my next machine will be neither HP, nor Windows.  I'm going to have to do a lot of research on quality and save up enough to not only get a new machine, but also to re-purchase all my Windows software in suitable format for Linux.  The only stuff I don't have to buy all over again is all my Profantasy software - CC3+ and its add ons.  I've had that confirmed over at Profantasy.  Its all cool as far as they are concerned - one licence fits all  :Smile: 

Apparently my Profantasy apps will run adequately in WINE.  I just haven't figured out how to do it yet, and while I still have Windows I might as well leave it there for the time being.

I can't make head nor tail of WINE right now, but  I'll look at it again when I've finished my City map  :Smile:

----------


## waldronate

> Well, and of course the machinations of the Evil Empire (tm), Microsoft.  (Not that Apple is much better, nowadays.)  At least now I know to avoid HP like the plague.


I got a chuckle out of that one. Microsoft has always desperately wanted to be Apple. If you choose to be in a position and it makes you happy, does it really matter that you're a slave?

----------


## Straf

HP took over Compaq and back in the day I always saw Compaq as being cheap, flimsy machines that had proprietary parts so upgrading them would cost whatever they said they'd cost and not free-market prices. I just assumed that HP would be the same but I never really cared about laptops because they're never really that upgradeable anyway. Unless they're really higher end.

----------


## acrosome

> I got a chuckle out of that one. Microsoft has always desperately wanted to be Apple.


Really?  I always thought that _historically_ it was the inverse, that Apple desperately wanted to be Microsoft.  Or, at least they wanted their market share so that everyone would be doing computing the "correct" way (i.e. the Jobs way).  Granted, that's probably an antiquated impression that gives away my age.  Apple had a massive paradigm shift after Microsoft bailed them out and they started emphasizing markets other than home computers.  So now, yes, Microsoft wants to be Apple in that they want to take over the smartphone market, develop "Microsoft TV", "Microsoft Carplay", etc.  But otherwise?  Meh.  Microsoft are really just sore winners.  They own the world.  What are they bitching about?   :Smile: 

And Apple machines have _always_ been incredibly locked down so that users couldn't monkey with them.  Because, y'know, the lusers would just mess up Jobs' perfection.  That's what I mean when I say that they aren't much better, among other reasons.  I do respect the way that they flushed backward compatibility and just started over with OS X, though.  That took guts, and it worked out for them, and _it's a better system for it_- none of the cruft that everyone is bitching about re: Windows.




> If you choose to be in a position and it makes you happy, does it really matter that you're a slave?


The key phrase here is, "If you choose..."   The problem is that so many people have no realistic choice.  Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you...

Damn.  That dude could sure turn a phrase, eh?   :Smile: 

And beer, of course.  After all beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.  (But not really- Old Ben actually was talking about wine.)

And for that matter Adams wasn't a brewer.  He was a maltser.

I'll stop now...

----------


## Non Serviam

> I hear you can run windows itself in Linux.


I have the ability.  I lack the stomach.  I'm used to the speed and power of Linux now, and I don't remember Windows fondly.  I prefer to do without.

----------


## Redrobes

WINE is just an application that loads windows app binaries and decodes them as would a windows machine and then intercepts the calls to the OS and finds a linux replacement for most of them. Linux will handle quite a lot of windows apps and the more standard the app is the more likely it is to run under WINE.

You can install Windows (and then run any windows app) under virtualization. Thats where the native OS like linux creates a sandbox and essentially creates a bootable computer inside of it and then it can boot windows from a virtual CDRom drive into its virtual memory space. All modern CPUs from both intel and AMD have special instructions in them to handle the virtualization so that they can perform as though they are running the OS on the base system instead of being held in a goldfish bowl. Its not particularly easy for the virtual OS to work out that it is inside of a virtualized container so thats why people like to use them for testing out viruses and so on. Also, when you buy web space you often get a whole machine as your web site. Only its not a whole machine of course its just the OS in a virtual container and the ISP is running thousands of those.

What you have mouse is two native OS's side by side on the same hard drive. In principle one could see the other but its not likely that they would look since you have partitioned the hard drive for them.

From your point of view tho, you just take a windows app and put on your linux drive area somewhere and then if you click on it then it may run because linux will note that its a windows app right away and then load WINE and hand it off and let it deal with it just like it would hand off a JPG to Gimp or ImageViewer or something similar. If you go back to my challenge entry a few weeks ago with the gold and roman mosaic floor I put up a couple of linux and windows apps to do the 3D stuff. You can try them both. I think I put them up in linux and windows format so one might run native on linux, the other may run only under wine on linux. And under windows one will run native and the other wont run at all because MS have no WINE like app and no intention of letting any other OS in.

You could have run a virtual machine in WIndows tho and install Linux into it which is what I used to do in the old days to get a convenient local linux box to run linux native apps.

----------


## Mouse

LOL!  Now isn't that just so typically 'Windows'!  They won't condescend to join the party with any of 'that kind of OS' - the 'riff-raff' systems  :Razz: 

I have to absorb what you've said and make a virtual map of what is happening in my imagination before I really get to grips with it all, but I will have a look  :Wink:

----------


## Redrobes

Save with OS files. Linux will read your DOS files or your NTFS files just fine. For windows tho you need to install an app to read your linux Ext4 files on it.

It used to be the case with all sorts of other files too like Word Docs, XLS files etc but that is not quite so bad any more.

Where it gets scary tho is when you have two machines one linux and one windows on the same network. Since its a network then both machines can see each other, naturally, but linux comes with a windows networking protocol implementation called Samba which can then look at the "Shared" folders like you normally make on windows - or maybe you dont if you dont run a network. Anyway the scary thing is that when you get one windows machine to look at another you get to see your single Shared folder. Run up a linux machine however and it can see all the admin shares and drive shares that your machine exposes to the world but windows hides from you. Mighty sobering !

----------


## Mouse

So people are sharing stuff they don't even know about when they're using Windows?

That's kind of.... creepy.

I do wish that MS would stop treating us all like we're idiots who don't know how to cross the road, and let us see these important things about our data.

----------


## Mouse

This Fall Creators Update (FCU) just keeps getting better and better...

Apparently, the patch for it - the one that I just managed to catch and refuse access to my system, is playing havoc with a lot of brand new machines - never mind 3 yr old HP laptops.

https://www.computerworld.com/articl...-big-time.html

The patch looks like a worse nightmare than FCU was in the first place.

I am *SO* glad that I'm no longer dependent on MS!

----------


## Azélor

I'm glad I'm still using that gud ol Windows 7. 
No problem here.
Apparently Windows 10 is becoming another failure, assuming it has already been good. Like Vista and 8.

----------


## Mouse

If only they had stopped with XP....

I really liked XP.

I am eventually going to have to say yes to that update, you know, because as soon as I get another security critical update I'm going to have to let it download and install.

You aren't allowed to choose which ones you want and which ones you don't when you click the accept button.

If I lose everything in my Windows partition at that point I will simply delete it and expand my Linux partition over the whole disc.

----------


## Ilanthar

My turn...

I have Linux Mint installed now, in its own partition. But, I can't access the windows part

"Error mounting /dev/sda2 at /media/julien/245E7EB35E7E7CFC: Command-line `mount -t "ntfs" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=100  0" "/dev/sda2" "/media/julien/245E7EB35E7E7CFC"' exited with non-zero exit status 14: Windows is hibernated, refused to mount.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda2': Opération non permise
The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state. Please resume and shutdown
Windows fully (no hibernation or fast restarting), or mount the volume
read-only with the 'ro' mount option."

I have disabled the fast boot... Don't know how to trigger that "read-only" mount option.

----------


## Mouse

That sounds very much like its the same as happened to me to start with.  

Windows is hibernating, which means its not fully switched off.  That's because of the fast boot option, which by default is 'on'.  Windows doesn't shut everything down but just tells the apps to remember how they were, ready for next time.  Its meant to speed up booting when you next turn your machine on, but it means the state of the Windows partition is unstable if you are trying to look at it from Linux.

This is my comment on the same issue, complete with a screen shot for comparison. 

If this is what yours is doing, ChickPea's solution immediately below that comment is the one to try  :Wink: 


EDIT:  Ah - didn't read the last line of your comment!  Sorry!

I don't know what to suggest.  Maybe one of the experts can step in?

----------


## Redrobes

It seems to me to be a bit of a risky thing to mount the windows partition in a writable state anyway.

But to turn off the hibernate you need to boot up windows and go in and set the shutdown type and remove the fast boot from there and then _really_ shut it down. Like a lot of things the MO of windows (and a lot of other consumer stuff) nowadays is to tell you one thing but actually do another.

Presumably once that has been done then you could mount the partition in linux.

If you want to know about the ro option then open a terminal and type:

man mount

which will bring up the manual for the mount command. The -r option will mount it read only but I suspect that it talking about the options to the fstab file which holds all of the mount options. Were starting to get a bit technical now but then your into mounting a partition which is not a small thing any more.

So with your terminal still open type:

cat /etc/fstab

and look at the file. If you want to edit it to add the entry for the mount partition and make that read only option then you need to run an editor like:

sudo vi /etc/fstab

or

sudo nano /etc/fstab

If this is too deep then I would suggest not mounting the windows partition. Its not a particularly sensible thing to do. If your able its better to take your map files over to a USB drive and then access it from both windows and linux that way. Or use a network and share a folder on windows and use linux to read and write through it. Or make a third partition on your hard drive which is your user data and format it ntfs and put your work there and then mount that read write in linux.

----------


## Ilanthar

I did turned the fas boot off and turned the computer off (completely off)... Still not working.
But yeah, I think you're right, it's a minor point & I'm probably gonna use my external harddisk for temporary things (like music) and transfer on my Linux part the files I need for working my maps.

Thanks for the help!

----------


## Mouse

Red - is the reason I'm not having that particular problem down to the way that I installed Mint 'alongside' Windows, rather than doing a 'something else' installation?

EDIT: I can see everything, and I can also write to the Win partition from Linux.  The only upshot of that is that Win seems to be aware that something has changed the next time I boot Win, and I get all this disc checking stuff going on.  

To prevent all that fuss I simply grab the file I want and save it in the Linux partition to work on it, then when I'm finished with it I put it on USB and reload it to the Win partition from the stick to keep the space clear in my much smaller Linux partition.  I don't have to do it that way, but it stops all the checking.

----------


## Redrobes

It should be possible to mount the windows partition if you want to but you run the risk that if its writable then you may write something somewhere and windows will have an issue booting up. Windows has its own file and securitypermissions to prevent you from writing stuff into certain locations. By mounting the windows partition you bypass all windows permissions as its not running the show. If you can put your data on its own partition then naturally you would then want it read-write.

So by reading from the windows partition and then writing to a USB stick and then booting windows and putting the stick in and taking the file off thats the same as using a USB drive and mounting the windows partition readonly which is a more sensible option. I certainly would not want windows having write access to a linux partition thats for sure.

I know we dont have money and space for multiple computers but I think its better to have a windows machine and a linux machine and then hook them both to your LAN and get both to see each other using network file sharing. Then you can go to your windows box find the file, copy it to your share and then pick it up in linux and then write it back to the share. Its nice and clean that way. If you have a USB drive then its about the same but you have to keep rebooting into windows to move the file. Not a huge deal but its nice to keep all your working windows open.

I copied all of my windows work to a USB hard drive which serves as my master data backup and now I barely ever boot the windows machine because if I need to read the windows file then I just look at the USB drive copy of it. My USB drive is the master copy of everything. Anything on a PC is a temporary copy or work in progress. I make a point of not becoming reliant on windows apps any more and now barely every boot the windows machine. The app I miss the most is Paint Shop Pro but I can grit my teeth and put up with Gimps quirks tho it sometimes drives me crazy. A lot of apps I write myself but I have not got around to porting ViewingDale but it runs perfectly under Wine so I have no incentive. All the zoomy maps here were done with it running under Wine. We must ask JonV to tell us how he got Wilbur running under Wine too. I tried quickly but with no success but I am not a big user of it so its not urgent for me.

----------


## Mouse

Yes.

Please, John, can you tell us how to run Wilbur in Linux?

If anyone also happens to know how to get Genetica to run on Linux that would also be really cool...

----------


## Ilanthar

I have a big USB drive, so I'm gonna be like you, red. I kept Windows precisely for Paint Shop Pro 7, Sketchup & Wilbur, most notably.

I'm transfering my recent files, right now...
It's kinda strange, I'm being kickedout of the guild with no reasons, it seems.

----------


## Mouse

What?

You mean kicked out of this place?!!!!

----------


## Redrobes

Check browser cookies and get rid of the guild one. Then log in and check the keep me logged in box. Should be good after that I think. Also make sure its:
https://www.cartographersguild.com
because the www bit on it had an issue like that a while back with the cookie or some other configuration.

----------


## Ilanthar

Idk, the site is running low, right now...

Seems to be better! i just had to complain. Thanks, your trick may have solved the problem, Red.

----------


## Mouse

This is the root of all my Win 10 problems:



There are three updates that I have successfully blocked by setting my broadband link to 'metered'.  Unfortunately for me I need the top one, since I rely on Windows Defender for AV.  I can't ignore it.  I have to click retry.  That will have the effect of automatically downloading and installing all of them, not just the AV app update.

This lack of user control and choice is why I'm in the process of going Linux, starting with a dual boot system.

EDIT: btw - Mint is doing splendidly.  If I can just figure a way of using Genetica in Mint without having to buy the software all over again, I'd get rid of Windows altogether.  Everything else is either already working fine in Mint, or transferrable... once I get my head wrapped around WINE!

----------


## selden

There are other free anti-malware software suites. Many of them are arguably better than what MS provides.

FWIW, I use Comodo Security Premium 10. It's not as easy to use as Defender is, though.
https://antivirus.comodo.com/free-internet-security.php

----------


## Mouse

Thanks Selden - I'll have a look at that  :Smile: 

I have Avast (cheapest purchase version), but I uninstalled it because it was being a pain in the B with constant 'buy the more expensive version of me' advert popups!

It also never saw something that Defender caught trying to get onto my system a couple of weeks ago  :Wink: 

I've done the update.  Everything seems to be fine on the Windows partition atm (I'm on it now), but I don't generally use my machine for games an awful lot, which is what I understand is causing the problems?  Not entirely sure.  

I can breathe again for now - until the next update.

Windows is merely storing my data and running the apps I can't move over to Mint for now, but it would still be a pretty big blow if I lost Win 10 functionality any more than it already is at this early stage of crossing over to the 'dark side'  :Razz: 

EDIT: spoke too soon.  The newest update to Win 10 does something disastrous to the browser.  Edge isn't working at all, and Firefox is very slow, so I'm back on Mint again now.

----------


## Ilanthar

One Windows, I have Avira antivirus. Don't know if it's a necessary thing for Mint.

----------


## Non Serviam

You don't need antivirus on Linux.  It is a good idea to enable the firewall (which you do by opening the terminal, typing "sudo ufw enable" without the quotation marks, and pressing "enter" -- type in your administrator password when you see the prompt).

----------


## Mark Oliva

> You don't need antivirus on Linux.


I don't want to get into a fight with anyone, but I would urge y'all to ignore this advice.  I know a few LINUX wishers who went naked and later wished very much that they hadn't.

----------


## Straf

> I don't want to get into a fight with anyone, but I would urge y'all to ignore this advice.  I know a few LINUX wishers who went naked and later wished very much that they hadn't.


I agree and I don't. I agree that nobody should go online or install anything if they aren't entirely sure about it. I disagree because Linux viruses are far less probably than Windows ones. That said improbable is still a long way away from impossible.

----------


## Mouse

Firewall has been active since the first half hour of Mint being installed.  Its on Mint's list of apps when you open the main menu, so of course I clicked it to see what it was all about.

_*note aside - the way this distro is designed its so easy for Windows users to find their way about its almost as if it was designed for Windows defectors!*_

Does anyone make AV apps specifically for Linux?

I would at least like to have a read before I make a final decision about whether I need more than the firewall.

Also, if I have a virus in my Linux partition it would find its way onto the Windows partition wouldn't it, and be detected by Windows Defender?  I know that's too late, and Defender won't be able to clean it because it can't see the partition, but I would at least know that I had to do something about it really fast if that ever happened.

----------


## Azélor

Windows defender can't see it.
Anyway, is defender really doing something? 
I just buy an anti virus. It looks more effective but maybe I'm wrong.

----------


## Mouse

Defender is better than the cheapest version of Avast.  That's all I actually know for sure, and that's only because Defender caught something that tried to get onto my Windows partition, while Avast sat there doing nothing (in the days shortly before I installed Mint)  :Wink:

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## Azélor

Well the cheapest version of Avast is the free one? It does the job if you have nothing else. 

There is a list of software here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...virus_software

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## Mouse

Oh thanks, Azelor  :Smile: 

That's just the kind of list I was looking for, instead of trying to adapt one that was designed primarily for Windows....

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## Azélor

I don't know what features are essential. I got Bit defender internet security and it covers every features but one. 
For Linux, Panda security has the most features. I have no idea if it's good.

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## Redrobes

I think if we focus on the word "need" then no, you dont need antivirus on linux. Is it a good thing if you have it running - probably. A firewall is not antivirus and I think some form of firewall is a good thing, probably not a need, but certainly more advisable than antivirus. But its no bad thing to have the firewall and antivirus running. I use a dedicated firewall external to my linux machine and I switch off javascript on the browser by default (and selectively enable it) which is by far and away the most notable vector for attack.

In general, linux users tend to be more savy about what is happening on the networking front than windows users. Its possible I could have a virus and not know about it but it would be impossible for me to have a bitcoin miner running sucking up >20% of the cpu or something logging a lot of data and sending it over the network without me noticing. Also, with the number of distros of Linux out there then if your writing a virus it would have to be very clever to navigate them all - not impossible but very hard indeed. The monoculture of windows versions is the reason why viruses propagate.

I have not knowingly had a linux virus and of the many people I know who use it I dont think I can recall anyone I know having one either.

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## Mouse

I've only encountered 3 virus in 10 years of daily use, 2 of which were just ad-ware.  I believe they were all piggy-backed on free apps I downloaded.

Ad-ware can be a B to get rid of once its there, and it guzzles metered broadband like crazy and makes the machine really slow, but its nowhere near as bad as the one and only actual malicious virus I ever encountered, which was Seespiro.A (I think that was what it was called anyway).  Defender woke up (despite having been relegated to periodic background scanning while Avast was live) and savaged it so quickly that I barely saw the information in a flurry of red and yellow alert pop-ups.  

I think it might have been a bit overzealous, since there's no sign of the app that I think it came with!

So, beyond my chatter about things in the past, and bearing in mind that I am a very long term Windows user (ie probably not very savvy), would it be true to say that I _should_ be relatively ok just over Christmas with just the firewall for a couple of weeks - bearing in mind that I'm so clueless about Linux apps that I have only dared to download and use apps that I can see through the software manager - the ones that are already part of Mint and other distros?

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## Mark Oliva

> I've only encountered 3 virus in 10 years of daily use, 2 of which were just ad-ware.  I believe they were all piggy-backed on free apps I downloaded.


Viruses are no problem whatsoever ... until you get one.




> I don't know what features are essential. I got Bit defender internet security and it covers every features but one. 
> For Linux, Panda security has the most features. I have no idea if it's good.


I haven't used Panda myself, but I do know several Windows and Linux users who swear by it, including some who were surprised by the slowly growing number of viruses that it was catching in a Linux environment.

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## Mouse

Funnily enough, Panda was the one I picked out from the list Azelor linked to above  :Smile: 

Don't worry, I'll get AV for the Mint partition on the basis of better safe than sorry  :Wink:

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## Ilanthar

I have downloaded Sophos, thanks to Azelor's list. It's free and seems to have all the necessary features, but I haven't installed it yet.
Does someone knows it?

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## Mouse

I've discovered one really major drawback to Linux (more accurately to having AV on Linux)

My metered broadband is being eaten alive for no apparent reason.  It started when I downloaded Sophos....

Now I need to keep my Windows partition just so that I can use it to be online, which makes it really awkward, but there you go.  

No longer online from Linux  :Frown: 



EDIT: ok booted Sophos off the system entirely with a stinging kick!  Now I'm ok again  :Smile: 

Will seriously have to consider whether AV is worth the excess BB charges I will very obviously incur.

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## Non Serviam

Only install software from the software manager -- never download files from anywhere else.  And if you follow this advice then I do solemnly swear that you won't need antivirus on Linux.

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## Mouse

Would you count Windows apps like CC3+ and Genetica as risks?  

I already own them, and want to be able to use them in Mint, through Wine (when I figure out how the heck to use Wine, that is)

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## Non Serviam

Not if you install them from your own disks that you know are malware-free.

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## Azélor

Any download is a possible risk of infection but somw might be considered safe or less risky. You only know after tough.

 I find it very limitative to avoid downloading anything. Just get the antivirus so you can use a computer normally.

Its like having a car with no insurance and refusing to drive it outside your private driveway because it is too risky.

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## Redrobes

The software in the official repos are checksummed in a way that makes it extremely unlikely that there could be malware hidden in them. When you install other stuff like .deb files or other downloads external to the download manager then there is as much risk as for windows. I cant foresee any reason why you might want to do that though. The windows exes like CC3 that you own on windows and are hoping to run via WINE are even more unlikely to have linux based malware in them. The chances of someone putting malware into a windows app that has code specifically to trigger when run under wine on linux are next to zero.

Your main vector for getting malware is via the browser under javascript. Put your effort into making your browser hardened rather than AV (on linux).

BTW, to use wine you do absolutely nothing at all. You just click on the app and linux will kick off wine when it notes that the app is a windows one. Either it works like the windows app normally would or it doesnt in which case (as a linux notice) just give up. Theres no UI or anything to do for WINE its a layer that kicks in by itself.

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## Mouse

Thank you, Non Serviam, Azelor, and Red  :Smile: 

The only .bat file I have downloaded and installed is the Discord one, (which works very well btw).

I'll leave the question of AV alone for a while, since I'm not really interested in anything that doesn't already come with Mint, or which I haven't already got installed on the Windows partition.

I'll try opening Genetica directly from the Window's partition in Mint a bit later.

That leaves only one question, which is: how do I switch the javascript off in Firefox?

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## Non Serviam

Ironically, the easiest way to do it is to download a firefox extension from Mozilla's servers.  This one:-

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/fir...ddon/noscript/

This is perfectly safe to do.  However, it will prevent any websites you haven't whitelisted from running javascript, which is quite a significant change to your browsing experience, and I find it stops me doing things I want to do.  Personally I choose not to use noscript.

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## Redrobes

In Firefox you can install an extension called NoScript where you can whitelist a site or have rules about which scripts to run. You can turn off all scripts in the options box but then barely any site will run - like this one for example. But with NoScript you can choose to run the guild and maybe the googleads but when you go onto sites such as newspapers and so on then you can allow the newspaper domain itself but block all the trackers and all the other guff that they put on the site. Newspapers are likely safe but many other sites you cannot trust. The issues lately have been the third party stuff that gets pulled in with a normal legit site.

For example. Go to the guardian newspaper site:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk

It wants to run the guardian javascript and youtube which are both pretty safe. Allow them both and then it wants to load up scorecardsearch which is probably safe from the AV point of view but is a tracker script monitoring your usage of the web. So you can permanently allow the guardian and youtube and permanent block scorecardsearch if you want and then when you go back there then it shows the site without the tracker script running.

Not running any script that hasnt been vetted will drop your chance of getting nasty stuff by a huge amount. The usual dont run email attachments and share USB sticks goes without saying I think.

Also, if your on a limited broadband usage per month then you should get AdBlock and write your own filters to cut out some of the things you dont want. I havent used the linux firewall myself but I would think that you could block certain problematic domains from that too. Like stop certain apps from continuously checking for updates as an example. In linux, the repo apps never update until you ask them to.

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## Mouse

Oh thank you, Non Serviam  :Smile: 

I've done it anyway, because I have no AV, and because the number of pages I visit is astonishingly small.  Only about 5 on a regular basis, including this one, Profantasy, and my email account.

The only time I go elsewhere is when I'm Googling for research information, and that's when I could probably do with at least a bit of protection in case I click on something a bit dubious in my innocence!  LOL!

Thanks again  :Smile: 



EDIT: ninja'd by Red  :Razz: 

That's a whole load of additional details that are great to know.  Thank you very much  :Smile: 

EDIT2: I already have AdBlock on my Windows partition  :Wink:

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## Non Serviam

Oh, yeah, trackers are everywhere.  That's what the ghostery extension is for.  (It's blocking three trackers on this page right here.)

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## Mouse

I guess one of them is the adverts, because I can't see them any more.

Which one is it, since the income that keeps this site going comes partly from them, so I feel I should at least allow them.

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## Redrobes

googleads and googletagservices I think two of them are. The other I dont know.

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## Mouse

All sorted, Red - thanks  :Smile:

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## Non Serviam

> googleads and googletagservices I think two of them are. The other I dont know.


The third is Facebook Connect.

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## Redrobes

Ah that makes sense - thats blocked at the firewall !!!

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## Mark Oliva

Just to put a footnote on this ...

HP has just announced a worldwide recall of various laptops.  The update will replace batteries and alter the BIOS.  Reason: _" These batteries have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to customers. For this reason, it is extremely important to check whether your battery is affected."_ 

To see whether your computer is affected, if you have a HP laptop:

https://batteryprogram687.ext.hp.com...ProgramSummary

This is a multi-language advisory from HP that lets one pick a different language than English for those who aren't native speakers.

Servus,

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