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Most Android-like desktop OS

Chuck Comet
By Chuck Comet
in Operating Systems
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So, I am nearing completion of my build. I'm at the point where my thoughts are on an Operating System. 

 

This build will do some gaming (nothing intense... GTA V, WoW, some OverWatch occasionally - though I thoroughly suck), media storage and streaming in a Bed & Breakfast home, smart home operations and perhaps, in the future, home security housing and monitoring.

 

I really HATE Windows and the nefarious proprietary crap we all put up with when using it. So, I am thinking about Linux. The problem here is twofold.  First, I am no programmer, and am barely computer savvy. Second, I don't know enough about the distros available to make an educated choice and I'm having a hard time finding "real" comparisons. Manjaro vs Mint vs Ubuntu. Cinnamon vs Mate vs KDE. Etc.

 

I would like to find an OS experience that is most like the Android experience I have on my smart devices. 

 

HELP... please. :-)

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Posted

Uh, chrome OS?

And it basically won't be able to do any of the things you want.

So yeah, keep using windows.

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3 minutes ago, Chuck Comet said:

So, I am nearing completion of my build. I'm at the point where my thoughts are on an Operating System. 

 

This build will do some gaming (nothing intense... GTA V, WoW, some OverWatch occasionally - though I thoroughly suck), media storage and streaming in a Bed & Breakfast home, smart home operations and perhaps, in the future, home security housing and monitoring.

 

I really HATE Windows and the nefarious proprietary crap we all put up with when using it. So, I am thinking about Linux. The problem here is twofold.  First, I am no programmer, and am barely computer savvy. Second, I don't know enough about the distros available to make an educated choice and I'm having a hard time finding "real" comparisons. Manjaro vs Mint vs Ubuntu. Cinnamon vs Mate vs KDE. Etc. 

 

HELP... please. :-)

To be honest, Windows is the best OS out there for gaming. There isn't much support for it on OSX and even less for Linux. Even there, you may have to run something like Wine just to be able to get things going, and from the last I heard, it still wasn't a guarantee. To be honest, there is a bit of a learning curve with Linux. Throw in the blessing/curse of there being thousands of distros, the choice isn't an easy one. The best I can recommend is a dual boot system, in which you use Windows to game. When it comes to learning Linux, and picking the right distro, I'd say if you have another computer you can play around with, download a distro onto a flash drive and boot off of it, then have fun.

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13 minutes ago, Chuck Comet said:

So, I am nearing completion of my build. I'm at the point where my thoughts are on an Operating System. 

 

This build will do some gaming (nothing intense... GTA V, WoW, some OverWatch occasionally - though I thoroughly suck), media storage and streaming in a Bed & Breakfast home, smart home operations and perhaps, in the future, home security housing and monitoring.

 

I really HATE Windows and the nefarious proprietary crap we all put up with when using it. So, I am thinking about Linux. The problem here is twofold.  First, I am no programmer, and am barely computer savvy. Second, I don't know enough about the distros available to make an educated choice and I'm having a hard time finding "real" comparisons. Manjaro vs Mint vs Ubuntu. Cinnamon vs Mate vs KDE. Etc.

 

I would like to find an OS experience that is most like the Android experience I have on my smart devices. 

 

HELP... please. :-)

Remix OS or Chrome OS

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While I do like Google, they are still in the same bag as Microsoft... they "own" us, and I'm no longer "for sale". 

 

 

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Well, you can just get an x86 version of actual android. That's probably as close as you can get.

 

http://www.android-x86.org/

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1 minute ago, DnFx91 said:

Well, you can just get an x86 version of actual android. That's probably as close as you can get.

 

http://www.android-x86.org/

wont be great for gaming mind you, but that's linux in general

Home PC:

CPU: i7 4790s ~ Motherboard: Asus B85M-E ~ RAM: 32GB Ballistix Sport DDR3 1666 ~ GPU: Sapphire R9 390 Nitro ~ Case: Corsair Carbide Spec-03 ~ Storage: Kingston Predator 240GB   PCIE M.2 Boot, 2TB HDD, 3x 480GB SATA SSD's in RAID 0 ~ PSU:    Corsair CX600
Display(s): Asus PB287Q , Generic Samsung 1080p 22" ~ Cooling: Arctic T3 Air Cooler, All case fans replaced with Noctua NF-B9 Redux's ~ Keyboard: Logitech G810 Orion ~ Mouse: Cheap Microsoft Wired (i like it) ~ Sound: Radial Pro USB DAC into 250w Powered Speakers ~ Operating System: Windows 10 Enterprise x64
 

Work PC:

CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1275 v3 ~ Motherboard: Asrock E3C226D2I ~ RAM: 16GB DDR3 ~ GPU: GTX 460 ~ Case: Silverstone SG05 ~ Storage: 512GB SATA SSD ~ Displays: 3x1080p 24" mix and matched Dell monitors plus a 10" 1080p lilliput monitor above ~ Operating System: Windows 10 Enterprise x64

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You want to play GTA V on a Non-Windows OS? Whether you like it or not Windows is the best for your needs. If you don't like W10 why not use something like W7 which doesn't have all the shit W10 has.

Hello

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Just now, TAHIRMIA said:

You want to play GTA V on a Non-Windows OS? Whether you like it or not Windows is the best for your needs. If you don't like W10 why not use something like W7 which doesn't have all the shit W10 has.

I will probably end up sticking with Windows. I'm just feeling around for Linux options. 

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So... I decided to give a dual OS system a shot. The laptop on which I am typing the comment is just another laptop, so I went into Disk Management to partition the C: drive. I have 335Gb free out of 425Gb available, but it won't let me shrink the drive any more than 4Gb total (due to unshrinkable files... blah blah blah). What in the world is up with that?  I need to shrink off at least 10, if not 20Gb, to use as a second OS drive. Why won't it let me?

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TBH, nothing is really like Android except for Android-x86 and Remix OS, which are literally Android. Ubuntu 17.10 (uses GNOME with custom Dash to Dock extension) probably has the closest mainstream out-of-the-box experience right now. You could probably get closer with some customization if you use KDE instead of GNOME.

 

On 12/4/2017 at 9:15 PM, Chuck Comet said:

So... I decided to give a dual OS system a shot. The laptop on which I am typing the comment is just another laptop, so I went into Disk Management to partition the C: drive. I have 335Gb free out of 425Gb available, but it won't let me shrink the drive any more than 4Gb total (due to unshrinkable files... blah blah blah). What in the world is up with that?  I need to shrink off at least 10, if not 20Gb, to use as a second OS drive. Why won't it let me?

Don't do partitioning for Linux with the Windows Disk Manager. The installers that Linux distros use are much better and automatically choose settings that will work for most people. If you already have Windows installed, the automatic configuration will choose a configuration that is good for dual booting. You can also do manual partitioning from the Linux installers if you need to.

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On 12/4/2017 at 10:15 PM, Chuck Comet said:

I need to shrink off at least 10, if not 20Gb, to use as a second OS drive. Why won't it let me?

Usually Windows will put the system restore files near the end of the partition.  The best solution would be to delete those files and disable system restore for a little while. 

 

Not sure what OS is on your laptop, but here's the guide for Windows 7.  It may work just fine on Win10, but then again I wouldn't be surprised if MS renamed some of the stuff or moved things around. 

To disable system restore, right-click "my computer", select "Properties". 

In the left column of the window, select "System Protection". 

Make sure your C: drive is selected, push the "configure" button and a new window will pop up.

In that window, select "Turn off system protection" and delete all restore points. 

 

You can re-enable system restore after you shrunk the partition, it'll then create new restore points over time. 

Also using Disk Cleanup (start menu -> accessories -> system tools) may help.  An if the laptop still uses a HDD instead of an SSD, you can try a defrag as well. 

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I just junked my Windows 10 and have Linux Mint now exclusively. Gonna try Wine and see if it satisfies all our needs.

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On 12/7/2017 at 11:20 AM, Chuck Comet said:

I just junked my Windows 10 and have Linux Mint now exclusively. Gonna try Wine and see if it satisfies all our needs.

Steam works nativity under Linux Mint. I haven't installed any games yet, to see how they work, but I would assume they would. At least the ones that support Linux. Wine is cool, but some stuff will not work. I know on MS office, at least older versions, not all the features would work under Wine. Wine is very hit or miss, I think there is a website for what software will work with it.

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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I have found that dealing with problems in Linux is over my head right now. I have had difficulty getting either Wine or PlayonLinux to work properly, and could not get a new 10TB HDD to mount. Since I don't yet know my way around, I'm going to replace it with Windows 8.1 for now and take some classes. 

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1 minute ago, Chuck Comet said:

I have found that dealing with problems in Linux is over my head right now. I have had difficulty getting either Wine or PlayonLinux to work properly, and could not get a new 10TB HDD to mount. Since I don't yet know my way around, I'm going to replace it with Windows 8.1 for now and take some classes. 

Might I suggest you install Classic Shell. It makes Win 8.1 more bearable to use. LOL The fact is, you can take all the classes in the world. Windows software was never made to run on Linux. If they function to an extent thats pretty much a success. Your best bet, its to support gaming devs who support Linux. 

 

As far as the 10 TB HDD. That could be a MBR vs GPT issue. MBR can only support up to 2TB and GPT can support a hell of a lot more. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Might I suggest you install Classic Shell. It makes Win 8.1 more bearable to use. LOL The fact is, you can take all the classes in the world. Windows software was never made to run on Linux. If they function to an extent thats pretty much a success. Your best bet, its to support gaming devs who support Linux. 

 

As far as the 10 TB HDD. That could be a MBR vs GPT issue. MBR can only support up to 2TB and GPT can support a hell of a lot more. 

My problem was not being able to mount the HDD for GParted to even assign a GPT status. I could keep trying, but the drive is so freakin' loud I am taking it back and sticking with SSD. :-)

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If you want to play the games you stated you basically can either get windows or get a console :P 

Folding stats

Vigilo Confido

 

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Most Android like desktop OS..   I think you're looking for http://www.jide.com/remixos-for-pc

Remix OS for PC allows you to run our PC optimized version of Android (Android Marshmallow is the current release) on any computer.  

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