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Discussion => Security => Topic started by: WinterMoon on November 22, 2012, 10:13 pm

Title: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: WinterMoon on November 22, 2012, 10:13 pm
Hi folks.  I want to abandon Windows and try to get started with Linux or something else but there are a couple of little problems. One: I'm an idiot when it comes to computers but I still want to try.  Two: The documentation I've seen is overwhelming, head-spinning stuff and I have no idea where to begin or with what to begin. I found LinuxLive USB Creator which looks like it has a version for dummies capable of running off of a windows machine - I found a lot of stuff but like I said, it's all so overwhelming...

If anyone thinks I have a snowball's chance of making the transition to something other than Windows would you kindly suggest a starting point?  Is there a grandma-easy solution? Time is becoming an issue,  I've been months getting this far but dammit, I know how to encrypt PMs.  Now, I want to encrypt my whole machine ...
Thanks!
 :-*

Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: imjusthereforthe on November 22, 2012, 10:43 pm
Google or research Wubi. Itll install ubuntu (one of the most usable and popular linux distros) and you can run it side by side with windows effortlessly. You uninstall it like a normal program from within windows as well. Try it out. Linux is awesome but unfortunately for me i own an iphone so itunes and a few games keep me from using linux all the time.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: fuckingACE on November 22, 2012, 11:37 pm
Hi folks.  I want to abandon Windows and try to get started with Linux or something else but there are a couple of little problems. One: I'm an idiot when it comes to computers but I still want to try.  Two: The documentation I've seen is overwhelming, head-spinning stuff and I have no idea where to begin or with what to begin. I found LinuxLive USB Creator which looks like it has a version for dummies capable of running off of a windows machine - I found a lot of stuff but like I said, it's all so overwhelming...

If anyone thinks I have a snowball's chance of making the transition to something other than Windows would you kindly suggest a starting point?  Is there a grandma-easy solution? Time is becoming an issue,  I've been months getting this far but dammit, I know how to encrypt PMs.  Now, I want to encrypt my whole machine ... fuck Windows and their backdoor to LE...

Thanks!
 :-*

Install LIberte linux on a pen drive for accessing SR when you are out and about. There are some good tutorials on how to do it here in the forums or PM me and I'll be happy to walk you through it. The reason I suggest this is because its so simple, you can't install anything, you cant break it, its fully encrypted... Basically its got just enough to work and do what you need it to do and not enough to overwhelm you.

Next, on your home computer install Mandriva.. It's a linux distribution thats easy to get the hang of. You don't need to know any linux commands, its all graphical, there are tons of guides on the interweb for installing&configuring and adding packages installing software etc.. Usually has no driver issues.. its pretty neat.. get the hang of that and when you feel like you (know) linux give backtrack a whirl, its a security distro... Its loads of fun, can learn to be geeky on it..  secure and shizz.

mandriva.com/downloads
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: fuckingACE on November 22, 2012, 11:40 pm
Oooo. Puppy linux for your USB key if you don't want to have your hands tied by not being able to customise or install software
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: crazycanadian on November 22, 2012, 11:43 pm
Is linux, or any form of linux capable of running on an android tablet?
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: WinterMoon on November 22, 2012, 11:46 pm

The reason I suggest this is because its so simple, you can't install anything, you cant break it, its fully encrypted... Basically its got just enough to work and do what you need it to do and not enough to overwhelm you.

This looks grandma easy - it will be my project for tomorrow.... baby steps.  Thank you for the information and for the kind invitation to PM - what a great community!!!  :-*
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: fuckingACE on November 23, 2012, 09:01 pm
No problem! Let me know if there is anything else I can help with. It´s a pleasure having people like you join us.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: Vandersnorch on November 23, 2012, 09:36 pm
Check out some of the Lifehacker guides, they're normally pretty newb-friendly but still informative: http://lifehacker.com/5778882/getting-started-with-linux-the-complete-guide

You might also want to look into dual booting Linux and Windows to start with and use the two until you're familiar enough with Linux

Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: woahmang on November 24, 2012, 12:21 am
Is linux, or any form of linux capable of running on an android tablet?
Off-topic I guess but I'll answer it anyway. The answer is that Android is already Linux (it's Android/Linux rather than GNU/Linux), but I guess you mean a GNU/Linux desktop operating system. You can easily run a Linux desktop on your Android device but it's not really ideal.

The reason why is that most UNIX-based operating systems including Linux desktops use the X Window System to serve up windows and buttons and menus and so on, the operating system has an "X Server" and each program is an "X Client" that connects to it. Because of this every program can be run over the network, which is cool as fuck but not important right now*. Android uses its own windowing system which is optimized for phones and tablets and is incompatible with X, and the graphics drivers for your Android tablet are built to work with Android not X. Currently there's no fully functional X server for Android. So currently the only option is to have an invisible desktop that's not tied to your graphics drivers and runs in the background, then connect to it using an Android VNC (remote desktop) app. I've not tried it, but I don't imagine it would give a very fluid experience.

If you want to do it anyway just install this app (Google Play Store) (http://"https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zpwebsites.linuxonandroid") which will walk you through the steps of installing Debian and other distros on your tablet and getting it running. You'll need root and a modern kernel, if you're running 2.3+ for example CyanogenMod you shouldn't have any problems. You'll also need a bluetooth keyboard and mouse because it's a desktop rather than a tablet interface.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: woahmang on November 24, 2012, 12:28 am
Back on-topic: How come nobody has recommended Ubuntu? Download the CD image, burn it, boot it up and play with it. If you like it then install it, if you don't then don't. It gets a lot of bad press among the longest neckbeards but it is incredibly easy to use and Unity is a modern UI.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: GetYourFix on November 24, 2012, 01:02 am
Back on-topic: How come nobody has recommended Ubuntu? Download the CD image, burn it, boot it up and play with it. If you like it then install it, if you don't then don't. It gets a lot of bad press among the longest neckbeards but it is incredibly easy to use and Unity is a modern UI.

I'm pretty sure the first person that responded to this already did lol.

Google or research Wubi. Itll install ubuntu (one of the most usable and popular linux distros) and you can run it side by side with windows effortlessly. You uninstall it like a normal program from within windows as well. Try it out. Linux is awesome but unfortunately for me i own an iphone so itunes and a few games keep me from using linux all the time.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: woahmang on November 24, 2012, 01:42 am
Duh! Sorry, I guess that's my cue to go to bed!
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: rise_against on November 24, 2012, 04:49 am
if you have two computers, have one running windows and one running linux, so that you can learn linux while trying to phase out windows.   
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: spd on November 24, 2012, 03:56 pm
I just did this myself, and its not as hard as you might think.  I'd also recommend the Ubuntu route - you can install it on your hard drive alongside Windows, and when you start up your machine , you will have the choice of which OS to boot into.  You'll have to spend some time tinkering and finding programs for Linux that can do the tasks you do in Windows...but you can take things at your own pace - boot into Ubuntu for a while and screw around - and then go back to Windows for your usual CPU usage.  After seeing it wasn't all that tough getting used to Ubuntu, i ended up picking up a new hard drive and using that as my Ubuntu drive while keeping my old drive bootable to Windows...and I almost never use Windows now.  (One thing to note - new files you create using Windows will be accessible from Ubuntu, but anything you create with Ubuntu will be invisible to Windows.)

I'm about ready to format my old drive and get rid of Windows entirely - but one thing I haven't been able to grasp yet is using GPG on Ubuntu.  Anybody have any pointers?  In Windows, I used GnuPG/Kleopatra which was really simple for storing keys and encrypting, but haven't found anything similar for Ubuntu.  Is there such a program?  All the GPG info I've found for using it on Ubuntu involves all Terminal commands which seems a bit confusing.  Checked some of the GPG tutorials on here, but they seem more geared towards Windows users.  Any advice?
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: rise_against on November 25, 2012, 09:05 am
I just did this myself, and its not as hard as you might think.  I'd also recommend the Ubuntu route - you can install it on your hard drive alongside Windows, and when you start up your machine , you will have the choice of which OS to boot into.  You'll have to spend some time tinkering and finding programs for Linux that can do the tasks you do in Windows...but you can take things at your own pace - boot into Ubuntu for a while and screw around - and then go back to Windows for your usual CPU usage.  After seeing it wasn't all that tough getting used to Ubuntu, i ended up picking up a new hard drive and using that as my Ubuntu drive while keeping my old drive bootable to Windows...and I almost never use Windows now.  (One thing to note - new files you create using Windows will be accessible from Ubuntu, but anything you create with Ubuntu will be invisible to Windows.)

I'm about ready to format my old drive and get rid of Windows entirely - but one thing I haven't been able to grasp yet is using GPG on Ubuntu.  Anybody have any pointers?  In Windows, I used GnuPG/Kleopatra which was really simple for storing keys and encrypting, but haven't found anything similar for Ubuntu.  Is there such a program?  All the GPG info I've found for using it on Ubuntu involves all Terminal commands which seems a bit confusing.  Checked some of the GPG tutorials on here, but they seem more geared towards Windows users.  Any advice?


they have Kleopatra for linux.   thats what i use.   if you're using ubuntu, goto the Ubuntu Software Center Launcher and search for Kleopatra.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: kmfkewm on November 25, 2012, 09:29 am
Ubuntu used to be good but now I think it sort of sucks. Even if you don't use Unity, if you use Unity it is just absolutely fucking awful. I suggest Mint for linux noobs.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: Trican on November 25, 2012, 12:17 pm
Ubuntu has had all the corners sanded off in the name of user friendliness. I'd still recommend it if you simply want to get off windows and wanted something that could surf the web and almost not fuck up flash videos most of the time. However if you want to actually get into Linux I'd second Kmfkewm and recommend Mint.

It would be useful to know what system you're thinking of installing it on, compatibility issues and all that jazz.

But regardless of what you pick go make an account on that distro's forum, read the FAQ and be ready to politely ask some questions (after googleing them yourself of course).
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: WinterMoon on November 25, 2012, 01:51 pm
Here's a great big thank you to everyone who made suggestions:  THANK YOU! 

I've actually tried most of what was posted.  Had Ubuntu installed but became impatient with it and foolishly uninstalled it right before reading that the 2nd reboot makes it faster. Right now I have one of the linux puppies installed- Lucid Puppy but it doesn't have Tor so I either need to find a different puppy with Tor built in or find a pet package with Tor & add it to Lucid.  I might go back to Ubuntu, either way, this was actually interesting and not nearly as frustrating as getting pgp sorted.

All this talk about pgp & Ubuntu:  I'm going to keep using pgp4usb, Kleopatra gives me headaches :)

Thanks again!

Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: kmfkewm on November 25, 2012, 02:27 pm
Just use the browser bundle for Linux, you are not supposed to use packages from repositories for Tor anymore anyway.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: fuckingACE on November 25, 2012, 04:35 pm
Here's a great big thank you to everyone who made suggestions:  THANK YOU! 

I've actually tried most of what was posted.  Had Ubuntu installed but became impatient with it and foolishly uninstalled it right before reading that the 2nd reboot makes it faster. Right now I have one of the linux puppies installed- Lucid Puppy but it doesn't have Tor so I either need to find a different puppy with Tor built in or find a pet package with Tor & add it to Lucid.  I might go back to Ubuntu, either way, this was actually interesting and not nearly as frustrating as getting pgp sorted.

All this talk about pgp & Ubuntu:  I'm going to keep using pgp4usb, Kleopatra gives me headaches :)

Thanks again!
GO PUPPY LINUX!!!
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: spd on November 26, 2012, 12:03 am
I just did this myself, and its not as hard as you might think.  I'd also recommend the Ubuntu route - you can install it on your hard drive alongside Windows, and when you start up your machine , you will have the choice of which OS to boot into.  You'll have to spend some time tinkering and finding programs for Linux that can do the tasks you do in Windows...but you can take things at your own pace - boot into Ubuntu for a while and screw around - and then go back to Windows for your usual CPU usage.  After seeing it wasn't all that tough getting used to Ubuntu, i ended up picking up a new hard drive and using that as my Ubuntu drive while keeping my old drive bootable to Windows...and I almost never use Windows now.  (One thing to note - new files you create using Windows will be accessible from Ubuntu, but anything you create with Ubuntu will be invisible to Windows.)

I'm about ready to format my old drive and get rid of Windows entirely - but one thing I haven't been able to grasp yet is using GPG on Ubuntu.  Anybody have any pointers?  In Windows, I used GnuPG/Kleopatra which was really simple for storing keys and encrypting, but haven't found anything similar for Ubuntu.  Is there such a program?  All the GPG info I've found for using it on Ubuntu involves all Terminal commands which seems a bit confusing.  Checked some of the GPG tutorials on here, but they seem more geared towards Windows users.  Any advice?


they have Kleopatra for linux.   thats what i use.   if you're using ubuntu, goto the Ubuntu Software Center Launcher and search for Kleopatra.

thanks, dont know how i missed that!

Though a little concerned about security with it - when I used Windows, I had all my gnupg software on a truecrypt partition, not just out in the open. 

kmfk - why do you think ubuntu/unity sucks compared to other linux distros?  this is my first go with it, and like it overall so far, but i have nothing to compare it besides WinXP.  and this blows that away (mainly because its actually making use of all the memory in my system - never realized XP had a 3gb limit....was always running slow as hell after a while so picked up more memory, only to find it useless, really the only reason i switched.)
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: spd on November 26, 2012, 12:15 am
nevermind on the first part, found an easy way around that...
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: bedhat on November 26, 2012, 01:00 am
poof
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: woahmang on November 26, 2012, 02:17 am
kmfk - why do you think ubuntu/unity sucks compared to other linux distros?  this is my first go with it, and like it overall so far, but i have nothing to compare it besides WinXP.  and this blows that away (mainly because its actually making use of all the memory in my system - never realized XP had a 3gb limit....was always running slow as hell after a while so picked up more memory, only to find it useless, really the only reason i switched.)
Canonical make some tough decisions to push Linux on the desktop forward, they're often half-baked implementations that are pushed out too soon and usually end up upsetting everyone.

A couple of years back they ditched Gnome 2.x, a Windows XP style desktop, and instead of moving to Gnome 3 which everyone hated they moved to their "Unity" desktop. This pissed a lot of people off. Everyone's Gnome widgets stopped working, application menus moved from inside the app to the top of the screen which fucked up some (specially Java) apps, they moved the close buttons to the left instead of the right, they removed the option to have more than four workspaces (desktops) and all the configuration options that Gnome had built up over the years were no longer available. On top of that Unity relies on Compiz which is a 3D window manager and is 3D-intensive, performing badly on older machines or those without modern graphics cards while Linux has traditionally been used to extend the life of older machines. Canonical supplemented this with Unity-2D which isn't developed as much and has now been dropped. They've also started including Amazon links in your desktop search, get paid for using Google as your default search engine, included their own cloud storage thing, integrated social media and chat into the desktop and so on.

So they alienated pretty much everyone who loves Gnome 2.x, plus the Gnome 3 guys and their followers, the Debian crowd, the purists and everyone who likes to configure their systems to the extreme.

I actually like Unity myself and realise that Canonical are a company who have to make money, and I want people to make ballsy decisions in the name of progress. That's not for everyone though and if there's one thing that can be said about haters it's that they're gonna hate.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: kmfkewm on November 27, 2012, 03:35 am
Not to mention the fact that Unity doesn't even feel like it was designed with desktops in mind. It feels like a tablet GUI. My firefox always wanted to be full screen and  didn't want to let me have multiple windows up at once. The navigation toolbar is on the side and pops up on mouse over, you need to search for applications by name instead of through menus, it just totally fucking sucks. When something is minimized it is a pain in the ass to get back to it. I like being able to switch between viewing the website in my browser and the downloads currently active, this turned out to be a challenge to say the least. I don't remember if they stuck to the 'let's for no reason put minimize maximize and close buttons on the LEFT side of windows' philosophy, because I only tried using Unity for about two seconds prior to completely ditching Ubuntu. Switching to Unity was the final fail I could tolerate from Canonical, but really Ubuntu has been spiraling down the drain for two or so years now. There is a reason they went from being the number one Linux distro to Mint pwning them after they switched to Unity, people don't want to use a tablet interface on their desktops and laptops.

At the end of the day they tried to fix something that wasn't broken and in doing so they broke it, and what they didn't break they changed for no apparent reason.
Title: Re: Jumping off of the Microsoft Ship - do you think I can do it?
Post by: woahmang on November 28, 2012, 03:37 am
Not to mention the fact that Unity doesn't even feel like it was designed with desktops in mind. It feels like a tablet GUI.
That was a valid argument with the first version, but not so much any more. It's optimized for keyboard rather than the Windows XP UI that everyone knows and loves. The taskbar is designed for screens that are wider than they are tall, which IMO is a good thing because the last 4:3 monitor I had was a cathode ray tube.

My firefox always wanted to be full screen and  didn't want to let me have multiple windows up at once.
Yeah it was buggy at first, works a lot better now though.

The navigation toolbar is on the side and pops up on mouse over,
Totally valid complaint, that dodge shit is annoying. Luckily this can be disabled with a couple of clicks.

you need to search for applications by name instead of through menus, it just totally fucking sucks.
Actually the search is a good thing IMO. Screw remembering where stuff is I just type its name. Having said you've still got both, it's just not as pretty as in Mint. I haven't got the hang of searchable menus yet though, maybe menus need discoverability or something.

When something is minimized it is a pain in the ass to get back to it.
You get alt+tab to switch apps and `+tab to switch instances. Or change your switcher in Compiz settings. No complaints from me about this one.

I like being able to switch between viewing the website in my browser and the downloads currently active, this turned out to be a challenge to say the least.
Ctrl+alt+left/right/up/down to switch workspaces, far more productive than a cluttered desktop and resizing windows all the time.

I don't remember if they stuck to the 'let's for no reason put minimize maximize and close buttons on the LEFT side of windows' philosophy, because I only tried using Unity for about two seconds prior to completely ditching Ubuntu.

They apparently did this because they're putting extra widgets on the other side, dunno if anything ever came of that though. Doesn't make much of a difference to me because I've used a few different desktops. Same with global menu, though that's actually better than Windows/BeOS per-app menus because it saves me some pixels.

There is a reason they went from being the number one Linux distro to Mint pwning them after they switched to Unity, people don't want to use a tablet interface on their desktops and laptops.
I dunno, I've used Unity on an eyefinity setup and it works well, the Compiz grid thing means you can have two half-fullscreen apps on each monitor and when you add the four desktops it means you can have 24 apps open without using alt+tab to search, far more productive than moving windows around.

At the end of the day they tried to fix something that wasn't broken and in doing so they broke it, and what they didn't break they changed for no apparent reason.
I personally appreciate them trying to find a new way instead of just copying Windows. Windows is shit but people are used to it, you can either change the way things work and piss everyone off or keep copying Windows/OSX to appease the users. If people don't experiment with new interface paradigms then we'll be using the Windows desktop in another 30 years instead of having completely new UIs that are more efficient.