Trying linux, suggestions and concerns

[FalseControl]

Hello guys!

 

I am looking to try getting into linux. I have an extra hard drive sitting around and was thinking of putting linux on it to try and expand my horizons from windows to linux. My first concern I have is will I have problems having 2 operating systems installed on 2 different drives? Any advice for that or do's and don'ts would be a great help. I do like to tinker and I know there are some growing pains with some linux operating systems. That brings up my next concern... which one should I pick? I saw the linux challenge that Linus and luke did so which one should I use??? 

 

Thanks for the help!

[YellowJersey]

I've never tried installing an OS on an external device. You'll probably experience performance issues, so it would probably make more sense to install Linux on a drive you can mount internally. You could also dual-boot, which means it'll install Linux on the same drive as your Windows OS and it will then ask you when you boot up whether you want to boot to Windows or Linux. Are you installing this in a laptop or a desktop?

 Luke picked Linux Mint, which is my preferred Linux distro (tbh, I haven't tried any others). I switched back in 2015 and I've never looked back (though I do keep a Windows partition for the few occasions when I need Windows). I picked Mint because it's great for people who are familiar with Windows; I found the transition pretty easy. I use the MATE desktop environment, though Cinnamon is more popular, but that's more a difference in aesthetics.

 Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more. I'm by no means an expert (I haven't used the command line much), but I'll help in whatever way I can.

[RONOTHAN##]

12 minutes ago, FalseControl said:

My first concern I have is will I have problems having 2 operating systems installed on 2 different drives?

that's the way you want to do it. If you try installing on the same drive, you can run into issues. Very often Windows and Linux will fight each other for the bootloader, and Windows will often uninstall GRUB and make your Linux install unaccessible without going into the live environment and reinstalling GRUB. Having them on two separate drives with two separate bootloaders simplifies this greatly, making it so Windows won't try and remove GRUB every time you do a Windows update. Only thing I'll recommend is that you install Windows first with just the one drive installed, then you can install Linux on the other drive with Windows installed. that'll make sure you can use GRUB to get into both (no need to mash F10 every boot to pick your OS) and Windows will have its bootloader on its own drive.

 

19 minutes ago, FalseControl said:

That brings up my next concern... which one should I pick? I saw the linux challenge that Linus and luke did so which one should I use??? 

Once you have enough experience, all distros are the same. The only real differences are the preinstalled applications, the package managers, and the default settings. You can make any distro into any other with the right amount of elbow grease.

 

That said, go for one of the more noob friendly distros. Ubuntu is the standard, Mint is just Ubuntu with slightly different defaults, and Pop_OS! is Ubuntu but slightly more up-to-date. Any of those will do very well, and are the right balance of pre-setup, easy to use and hard to break while being able to modify it to be just how you like it. 

[Estiar]

You probably won't have issues putting it on two drives. It makes it a little simpler if you want to switch between the two using the BIOS boot selection. I'd pick the Linux drive to boot first, as GRUB, the startup program for Linux plays pretty nicely with Windows. Whichever drive you boot off of will affect its speed somewhat, so try putting each one on a SSD. I don't recommend putting two OS on the same drive, unless you really know what you're doing, and are willing to fool around with partitions.

 

Once Linux is installed, run this command in the terminal to get it to recognize windows. (Don't know how to do it in GUI but it works across distros)

sudo update-grub

As for your distro, Mint is good. I use Ubuntu, which is well supported. I hear Pop! is pretty good (despite Linus' mistakes) and if you want to go to an arch based distro, Manjaro is well supported, and has an easy storefront to work with. Those are my recommendations.

 

 

[FalseControl]

1 hour ago, YellowJersey said:

1 hour ago, LloydLynx said:

If Mint has issues that you can't solve, move to something like Manjaro since it uses a completely different base and things might work better (or worse) for you. But it's a little less stable with updates and has less polish. There's also a lot more options of ISOs. I haven't used it so I'm going off everything I've heard about it. 

 Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more. I'm by no means an expert (I haven't used the command line much), but I'll help in whatever way I can.

Ok guys I have a quick question. I already have a USB with windows installer on it. Would I be ok putting the linux installer on the same USB stick or should I split it up. Mostly for organization cause I like things to be together when they do the same thing.

 

[FalseControl]

Just now, LloydLynx said:

There's a software called Ventoy that can format a USB stick so you can have multiple ISOs on it. When it's done, you can put as many ISOs onto the drive as you want like normal files and they will appear in the Ventoy list when you boot into the USB stick. 

www.ventoy.net

Love it

[YellowJersey]

2 hours ago, FalseControl said:

Love it

It's possible that they fixed this with the latest release, but I found the one thing that a Mint install doesn't have ready right out of the box is the firewall turned on. It's easy enough to fix, just go to the notStart menu, type in "firewall," click on it, and then make sure the firewall is on. (If you're using Mint, that is).

[IronJaeger]

Put that extra hard drive in if its an internal one. Still, you chose your primary HDD for boot record.

 

I tested and wrote about different OSs my latest and main now isOpenSUSE tumbleweed. And I find that it is harshly underrated. Find about my testings that I keep in my Substack https://eljondy.substack.com/p/tumbleweed