Hoping to run Linux as my main OS..

[Saracen]

@ZaO.

One reason for my drive bay scheme is, actually, hassle avoidance. But in a different context.

My perspective is backup, and system recovery. To my mind, while both virtualisation and dual boot both have their place, they also complicate full system recovery, especially when different file systems are involved. And yes, there's ways round it, but I've had issues in the past with both.

If you are repkacing the entire drive, however, then when running, whatever the system is, it is natively and purely that, without either dual/multi-boot complications, or virtualusation, to complicate things.

One more thing. Remember I said my bay thingy was four-bay? Well, not only can I physically change boot drive, but also physically change data drives, while still having one spare bay. So, it's dead easy 'ghosting' a full system 'recovery' drive, with the beauty of not even needing to reload the image. I just change drives.

I can also duplucate data drives. Or install drive four, copy backup data, and remove drive four. There's other options to that route, too, but you get the idea.

I take the point about not wanting to reboot regularly, though. I tend not to, though. I settle in for a session, and rarely need to reboot within, because what I boot dictates which drive I boot from.

Oh, and on reboots, ypu'llmdo exactly the same amount of rebooting if you go dual/multi boot.

One more thing. This route does require some money up-front, for the bay(s), and drives, and the time to physically install the bays.

But .... you power down, remove your boot drive, install this drive bay, put your boot drive back in and your system is EXACTLY as it was before you started. You haven't had to much about with drive MBRs installing dual boot, etc. You've done NOTHING to your current drive, other than boot it. And because you do nothing to it when installing Linux, or whatever, on a second drive, then as long as you power down any extra drives, nothing you do with experimentation can affect your 'live' drives. And that, by the way, is why I bought the multi-bay drive thingy - quickly and easily removing/protecting 'live' data drives.

Anyway, suit you or not I put it out there. It's one way, as they say, to skin a cat. Not the only way, though.

[ZaO]

@ZaO.

One reason for my drive bay scheme is, actually, hassle avoidance. But in a different context.

My perspective is backup, and system recovery. To my mind, while both virtualisation and dual boot both have their place, they also complicate full system recovery, especially when different file systems are involved. And yes, there's ways round it, but I've had issues in the past with both.

If you are repkacing the entire drive, however, then when running, whatever the system is, it is natively and purely that, without either dual/multi-boot complications, or virtualusation, to complicate things.

One more thing. Remember I said my bay thingy was four-bay? Well, not only can I physically change boot drive, but also physically change data drives, while still having one spare bay. So, it's dead easy 'ghosting' a full system 'recovery' drive, with the beauty of not even needing to reload the image. I just change drives.

I can also duplucate data drives. Or install drive four, copy backup data, and remove drive four. There's other options to that route, too, but you get the idea.

I take the point about not wanting to reboot regularly, though. I tend not to, though. I settle in for a session, and rarely need to reboot within, because what I boot dictates which drive I boot from.

Oh, and on reboots, ypu'llmdo exactly the same amount of rebooting if you go dual/multi boot.

One more thing. This route does require some money up-front, for the bay(s), and drives, and the time to physically install the bays.

But .... you power down, remove your boot drive, install this drive bay, put your boot drive back in and your system is EXACTLY as it was before you started. You haven't had to much about with drive MBRs installing dual boot, etc. You've done NOTHING to your current drive, other than boot it. And because you do nothing to it when installing Linux, or whatever, on a second drive, then as long as you power down any extra drives, nothing you do with experimentation can affect your 'live' drives. And that, by the way, is why I bought the multi-bay drive thingy - quickly and easily removing/protecting 'live' data drives.

Anyway, suit you or not I put it out there. It's one way, as they say, to skin a cat. Not the only way, though.

I appreciate the tips with that But I really just want to run one OS, no dual booting or drive swapping.. Thing is, I know I'm probably not gonna be able to do what I want to do haha... Everytime I've tried in the past, it's never worked out! If I hadn't bought all those plugins, I'd probably just install Linux straight away and buy one of the native DAW's such as Bitwig and be done with it..

I'm gearing up to give Mint a try later, but I'm really worried about trying to dual boot it as that ahs caused me some terrible issues in the past which caused me to reinstall everything all over again. I think what I might do is install it on my second hdd, but even if I do that, it's still probably gonna write over the Windows boot sector on C drive.. Maybe I'll just unplug the Windows drive for the test or something. I dunno..

[Saracen]

Feel your pain, ZaO. Been there, done that, etc.

If you can, I'd certainly recommend experimenting on a 'non-live' drive. Money permitting, it's a good excuse for a drive upgrade, or a new SSD, or whatever best suits. At an absolute minimum, 'ghost' (or TrueImage, etc) the drive first.

[ZaO]

Feel your pain, ZaO. Been there, done that, etc.

If you can, I'd certainly recommend experimenting on a 'non-live' drive. Money permitting, it's a good excuse for a drive upgrade, or a new SSD, or whatever best suits. At an absolute minimum, 'ghost' (or TrueImage, etc) the drive first.

I'll see what I can do. I'm going to experiment with running a live version of Mint from a usb drive, first. Then I'm going to install in a virtual machine within Windows. Then I'll think about trying some other options. I don't have any money to buy more drives right now, so I may clone my SSD with Windows on then just do a proper Mint install on that for testing. I guess that would be the most reliable way of telling what does and doesn't work! Fun times ahead of me

[ZaO]

Just like I feared, this turning out to be tough. I might get further with enough persistance, and I will keep trying But I just had another question if you guys could help..

I know I said I didn't want to do this (and I still don't haha), but I'm just looking ahead and thinking what I'll do if I have to keep Windows. I don't want to buy any extra storage drives, but I might do at a later date. So I had this idea where I could dual boot Linux and Windows on the same drive, only booting into Windows for working on music and playing games (I may even keep Windows completely offline). I want to keep all of my personal files and emails etc away from Windows. So, that's where Linux comes in.

There is a bit of a complication though. I have two drives. One is an SSD, the main drive, the other is a SSHD which is mainly used for media storage and also has a few programs installed on it.
So what I'm thinking of doing is splitting each drive in half with partitions. Linux and Windows would get a half of each drive.

Would it be possible to have Linux encrypt its partitions on both drives when I shut it down/Hibernate? That way, Windows shouldn't be able to access the Linux partitions at all.

Also, is there a way I could have Linux hibernate, then access the boot loader and go straight into Windows? That would make it much less painful switching back and forth, as I wouldn't have to keep opening up all of my programs each time I switch back to Linux.

It'll be good to know ahead of time if this is an option! In the meantime, I'm going to carry on trying to figure out how to get all my stuff running on Linux. Feeling determined to find some kind of a solution here, even if it's not quite what I was originally aiming for.

Thanks guys

[AlSomething]

Hi

You could get linux to use a file structure that Windows doesn't support which used to be a problem I had years ago. I don't know if things have changed. If it is sensitive data it's good to have that encrypted anyway but how many people do that? Yes you can boot straight into linux by default. Don't know about how well encryption would work like that but it should be possible. Be wared if you loose the key that's it bye bye data, even if it's not your fault. Just like a drive failing.

Otherwise as long as Windows isn't pointed at the drive, it won't scan it. So while it will know there is a drive it won't index it or look for files unless told to do so. That way you can manually access the drive in Windows should you need to for backwards compatibility.

I feel you are taking this Microsoft are pure evil thing to far, yes I can understand you unease of them and not wanting to hand over data. So making you feeling known by switching is very good but Microsoft are being very clear with what they will do with the data and would look after your data to provide services. It's mainly cloud backup and services which need a level of control to provide a good service. Unless you have a business or very sensitive data you should be fine.

Let us all know how you get on with linux as it's interesting and I always like to dable myself, when I move out in a few weeks, I will have a PC with Linux as well.

Got more to add but must go to work

Alex

[directhex]

Would it be possible to have Linux encrypt its partitions on both drives when I shut it down/Hibernate? That way, Windows shouldn't be able to access the Linux partitions at all.

Yes. Most modern distro installers have LUKS encryption (whole partition), and/or ecryptfs (just user files)

Also, is there a way I could have Linux hibernate, then access the boot loader and go straight into Windows? That would make it much less painful switching back and forth, as I wouldn't have to keep opening up all of my programs each time I switch back to Linux.

That's actually a good question. suspend-to-disk with rebooting in the middle? Hm. I think it should be technically possible, but I don't recall ever seeing it.

[DanceswithUnix]

The encryption sounds a bit much to me, unless Microsoft now have ext4 support built into Windows 10 then it seems there is a clear intent that you as the user didn't intend Windows to have access to that data. I just don't see Microsoft crossing that line.

I found since the Steam client came out on Linux I spend much less time in Windows. Back playing WoW atm which lazyness prevents me from trying under Linux so that is my reason for booting into Windows. Once in Windows, momentum keeps me there until I have to do some work from home which means Linux. Once in Linux, I tend to find something I can play there rather than reboot into Windows. That is part of what stopped me playing Elite: Dangerous given it is Windows only, so if I am in Linux I don't really want to reboot just for a game. I have updated Wine and have the AMD drivers installed, so WoW should just work. Really must try it

[Mister]

If Linux had directx support I'd switch tomorrow. But microsoft will never allow it, because they know they would loose the gamers over night :/

[ZaO]

Well I wish I could trust MS a bit more like you guys, but I can't. I can't trust them because they've built a data mining system that doubles up as an operating system. I appreciate they've been reasonably clear about it, but there is still a section of the privacy policy that remains very sketchy. That discussion is already going down in the Windows 10 thread anyway

So, hibernating Linux, then rebooting into Windows. I have a feeling I might have to go on a bit of a mission to sort that one out.. I was also thinking lastnight that I could just install Linux properly, then run Windows virtually inside Linux. I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Seems so obvious now haha! Maybe someone suggested it already, not sure.. My computer is pretty powerful though, so I'm sure it'll handle it. So I suppose if I took that route, my main issue would be getting low sound latency from the virtual machine, through Linux and into my ears. You reckon I could sort something out there?

Thanks all

[shaithis]

It's going to be a harsh and rocky road.

Linux + AMD + gaming + windows music production software? That is just about as uphill a struggle as you could get.

Negating the music side of things, you are at the mercy of both game developers and AMD. The amount of things that will both work, and work well, will be limited. Obviously, this is constantly getting better but it is far from trouble-free yet

Not a lot you can do but jump through hoops when you get stuck. There are plenty of solutions out there to overcome issues with certain games if your willing to do the legwork.

As for your music.....again WINE will probably help but I wonder if you are using your studio in a way that requires low-latency audio? If so, I fear that WINE might add in some nasty delays, making a switch to a native-Linux app necessary.


The bottom line is: You probably won't get this working as smoothly, seamlessly or as fast as a native Windows install but then I guess you already know that. All you can do is "suck it and see" and decide whether you are happy with the trade-offs.

[ZaO]

It's going to be a harsh and rocky road.

Linux + AMD + gaming + windows music production software? That is just about as uphill a struggle as you could get.

Negating the music side of things, you are at the mercy of both game developers and AMD. The amount of things that will both work, and work well, will be limited. Obviously, this is constantly getting better but it is far from trouble-free yet

Not a lot you can do but jump through hoops when you get stuck. There are plenty of solutions out there to overcome issues with certain games if your willing to do the legwork.

As for your music.....again WINE will probably help but I wonder if you are using your studio in a way that requires low-latency audio? If so, I fear that WINE might add in some nasty delays, making a switch to a native-Linux app necessary.


The bottom line is: You probably won't get this working as smoothly, seamlessly or as fast as a native Windows install but then I guess you already know that. All you can do is "suck it and see" and decide whether you are happy with the trade-offs.

Definitely. You're right! I have been in similar situations before. Tried the dual boot scenario - ended up on Windows full time again lol...

I was now actually thinking about installing Linux, then just running Windows as a virtual machine within it. I'm running a 4790K, 290X with 16GB DDR3 so I think it'll handle it My main issue there would probably be the audio latency from the virtual machine through Linux. That might not really be an issue though. I mean, I've never tried it.. Low latency is very important, so I'd need to be pretty sure about that one first! Cheers

[ZaO]

Ok guys. Saracen's idea kinda got me thinking, and I might do something similar if this virtual machine idea doesn't work out. So right now, my plan is to buy another SSD and install Linux on one of them, then play around with stuff and see what I can work out. I might do some kind of dual boot setup with an OS on each drive if I have to. We'll see..

Anyway, I was just wondering about Linux compatibility with SSD's as I saw something about that on another website. I couldn't really find much else on the subject though. Didn't even realise it was a thing.. I currently have a Crucial MX200, and I'm looking at buying either another one of these, or a Samsung 850 Evo. Both are around the same price, though the Samsung performs a bit better. I'd be happy with either though. Do you guys know if these will work properly, fully functional, without issues on Linux? I'd hate to find out they didn't after buying :/ Thanks!

[DanceswithUnix]

AIUI your system should run fstrim on a weekly basis as that provides better performance than sending trim commands on the fly.

All our machines at work come with an SSD boot/OS drive, I haven't seen or heard of any issues. They run Debian, but something that fundamental should be universally supported.

[ZaO]

AIUI your system should run fstrim on a weekly basis as that provides better performance than sending trim commands on the fly.

All our machines at work come with an SSD boot/OS drive, I haven't seen or heard of any issues. They run Debian, but something that fundamental should be universally supported.

I would hope so. But it's just one of those things I thought I should ask about.. I'll be running a Debian/ubuntu based distribution anyway, as that'll be best for gaming Cheers.

[GuidoLS]

I would hope so. But it's just one of those things I thought I should ask about.. I'll be running a Debian/ubuntu based distribution anyway, as that'll be best for gaming Cheers.

Don't conflate easier with better The best gaming distro for Linux is Slackware, but it's far from the easiest - much like Windows, a good part of performance is based on what's running in the background, and the 'boutique' distros all tend to have a lot more background clutter on by default. Your desktop is also going to be a big factor in used system resources.

Linux is a lot of things, and it's getting easier and better for the general user, but don't confuse easier than before with being easy. It's not easy yet. Just slightly less involved with the advent of Steam on Linux and PlayOnLinux, which purports to make installing Windows software, in general, and games, specifically, a lot easier than before, but it's still a front end for WINE, and isn't perfect.