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As a followup to an earlier blog post at Ubuntu's blog about why those on Windows 7 should upgrade to Ubuntu, the same blog has a post about how to actually do it.
A few days ago, Rhys Davies wrote a timely article, titled Why you should upgrade to Ubuntu. In it, he outlined a high-level overview of what the end of support of Windows 7 signifies for the typical user, the consideration – and advantages – of migrating to Ubuntu as an alternative, and the basic steps one should undertake to achieve this.
We'd like to expand on this idea. We will provide a series of detailed, step-by-step tutorials that should help less tech-savvy Windows 7 users migrate from their old operating system to Ubuntu. We will start with considerations for the move, with emphasis on applications and data backup. Then, we will follow up with the installation of the new operating system, and finally cover the Ubuntu desktop tour, post-install configuration and setup.
The upcoming Long Term Support (LTS) release will have not just the usual five years of regular support but an optional additional five years for those that decide to pay. That would be 10 years starting from April, 2020.
Previously:
Ditching Windows: 2 Weeks with Ubuntu Linux on a Dell XPS 13 (2018)
How to Create a Custom Ubuntu ISO with Cubic (2018)
Debian vs. Ubuntu: What's the Difference? (2017)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday January 30 2020, @01:36PM (24 children)
download latest snapshot .iso from http://linuxfreedom.com/mxlinux/MX/Snapshots/ [linuxfreedom.com]
open a terminal
$ sudo su
# mount
try to ascertain "what is the device mounted as root", e.g. sda5, else take note of all /dev/sd... or /dev/hd... combinations of letter/numbers appearing in the list and try them all starting from the top until one works. this is the price for your ignorance. BTW I assume no responsibility for what happens to your system as a result of meddling with it as detailed below.
# mount --bind (location of .iso) /mnt
# cp -a /mnt/antiX /frugalmx
note, the following is for the example with root in sda5, note that sda5 translates into hd0,msdos5 while e.g. sdb3 would be hd1,msdos3...
# echo "menuentry frugalmx {
set root='hd0,msdos5'
linux /frugalmx/vmlinuz quiet nosplash bdir=/frugalmx bdev=/sda5
initrd /frugalmx/initrd.gz
}" > /etc/grub.d/40_custommx
# update-grub
# reboot
now you should have a frugalmx boot option, which boots a live mx linux that you can use to experiment, with extensive live iso creation and remastering tools, to check out the real potential of linux instead of that poor performer of ubuntu. Whatever you install or save is in ram, will be lost unless you remaster using the remaster cc command. The actual partition is available on /live/boot-dev while Live-usb-storage folder is persistent as it is saved somewhere in the actual partition. Some state, like network.conf and history, should be automatically preserved in /state folder.
Should you screw up or wanting to uninstall, delete /frugalmx, /etc/grub.d/40_custommx and reissue update-grub
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:12PM
LOL i meant mount -o loop, not --bind, in fact I guess you can simply
# mount (.iso location) /mnt
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:21PM (2 children)
Error dude. I install Ubuntu over windows. This is too much for new users.
Try:
Prepare: Plug in a external hard disk drive and copy all data and files across
1) Download Ubuntu iso - Ubuntu 18.04 Mate -to your Windows machine
2) Use the USB guide with the ISO to make a bootable Ubuntu USB boot stick
3) Plug in USB stick
4) Reboot
5) Enter bios or use F10/F12 to boot to the USB instead of Windows
6) Install Ubuntu Mate 18.04 choosing the option to use the whole hard drive
7) Remove USB
8) Reboot
You tell them it is basically Windows/Mac for the new millennium.
Show them the software boutique. Add the software center. Show them the Ubuntu stackoverflow site.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:44PM (1 child)
my instruction were the next step after having installed ubuntu. why? because in my system ubuntu sucks almost like windows 7 in terms of performance.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:26PM
it's probably possible to install linux from a email link in outlook but that was successfully lobbied onto the pages of "how to keep your email secure!" in the "computers for dummies" book ...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:38PM (19 children)
Alternatively, go through the archives and find a KDE-centric linux from a decade ago, before most of them got totally fscked up. It's not like the free software ecosystem has grown over the last decade. And your programs that didn't run/features didn't work under linux a decade ago still won't run/still missing features under linux today. Same thing with your multi-function laser printer/scanner.
Because the version of GNOME in Ubuntu today is even crappier than it was a decade ago. Today's version of a file manager is "File". But it's not really a file manager. Even Windows 3x had a better file manager. You want to view files in two directories side-by-side. Can't be done. So, launch another instance and view them in two windows? Can't be done. The quick fix is to install mc (a clone of the Midnight Commander DOS program) and run it in a terminal.
Scroll bars? Unless your mouse is actually over them, they have a nasty tendency to disappear. "It makes more efficient use of screen space." Like with today's large screens that's the most pressing need. Same excuse with hamburger menus instead of permanent menus and toolbars and status lines. This MIGHT have been valid 30 years ago, but it's not today.
Some of the programs you need won't work, and don't have free software (or even paid software) equivalents, because "proprietary software is teh EVIL". You know what's even more evil? Doing everything possible via propaganda to discourage people from even having a choice. So you force people to either stick with Microsoft or upgrade to Apple.
Stick with your old Win7. It won't stop working even if it's not supported any more. It's not like people do the riskiest things on their desktops and laptops any more - most web browsing is done on phones. Even XP is still floating around if you're desperate. There are cracks that let you avoid activation, and if it dies, just re-install, same as always.
"But my software won't run on an older version of Windows!" So what, it won't run on any version of linux, so what's the diff?
And a word of warning - Ubuntu comes with several different ways to install software. You can update with any of them, but if you mix and match, any upgrade will have a big chance of failing and leave your computer unbootable, so when you see the notification that you can upgrade to a newer version, don't, unless you have older bootable media handy to re-install your current version.
At the turn of the century, we all heard the "this is the year of the linux desktop: mantra. 20 years later, we know that it didn't happen. Why it failed isn't as important as acknowledging that it failed. If you can't even bring yourself to acknowledge that, you aren't ever going to learn from your mistakes.
There are other alternatives to Ubuntu. Better alternatives to Ubuntu. It was Crapuntu a decade ago, it's still Crapuntu today. The only real improvement is that they got rid of the ugly halloween orange-and-brown colour scheme, and the iridescent purple suppurating fungus infection one after that.
Sure, you can install different windows managers. But it's easier to just go to a distro that offers what you want as the default. KDE, LXDE, whatever, because Gnome 3 is shittier than even Gnome 2.
Or just keep running windows 7. If Microsoft remote-kills it, sue in small claims court. People who sued over lost data and unbootable computers for forced updates got a lot more than just a refund [theregister.co.uk]. $10 k buys a really maximum-pimped-out Mac and a shitload of software.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 30 2020, @04:08PM
From the limited experience I've had with MX Linux, I like it quite a bit. I've not seriously given Ubuntu a shot in a long time, because they're so full of make it easy, they end up bloated and slow. Even with something like Lubuntu or Xubuntu. Now, if you're coming from Windows and going to a Linux, giving Ubuntu a shot, isn't a bad thing. They feeling I get from Ubuntu is a bit more like Apple, but with a bit more bloat.
When switching to a new version of Windows, it's more likely to be my software doesn't work on the new version of Windows. In which case, it's a lot more likely that Wine may actually be able to run it on a Linux machine. PlayOnLinux, isn't just for games, it's a great tool that can be used to make a lot of Windows software functional on Linux.
At the end of the day though, people tend to go with whatever they know. Until some Linux machine can make people excited about getting it, people won't want something else to deal with. A lot of Linux issues are coupled with poor hardware/driver support for the newest thing. Kind of a chicken and egg problem. If it just worked, I would give it a go, but without the demand, there's no incentive for software/hardware companies to support Linux.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:42PM
you know, you should really threat every computer like the mainframe on the alien mothership depicted in the movie "independence day I"...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:49PM (1 child)
My gripe over the last 20 years is that Linux has always been ready for the desktop, just as much as Windows or Mac has. You have always been able to do anything you've needed to do, but the problem is that the goalposts keep getting moved. I think driven by the late 90's Microsoft FUD most people were too scared to consider a switch, or felt it you had to be some sort of super nerd to do it. I used to see all the time (if Slashdot had any kind of decent search function (and we, of course, fail at it here too)), you'd see stuff like "I would LOVE to switch to Linux, and I totally would, except that I need to run Quicken". Another big one from then was how expensive it would be to retrain all the secretaries on how to run Linux, which was either a very ignorant statement, or a disingenuous one because the changes going to windows manager-based Linux distro is no more onerous than any major Windows upgrade (95 to NT to XP to . . .).
For whatever reason, people were always willing to take it up the rear from MS and stick with the devil they know than to try something else.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:58PM
We saw what happened when Loki software worked out a deal to develop Windows games for linux. They died. The problem is that the number of people willing to PAY for software on a free software system is not all that great. Most of them already have the equivalent software running on Windows, so you're not going to sell them another copy.
Let's take your example of Quicken, or Quickbooks. You need to be able to print, and printer support under linux is really, really hit or miss, and varies widely by distro. So scratch that. You aren't going to test software against 100, never mind 1,000 distros. Not even 10, because every time there's an upgrade to the kernel you need to test all 10 again.
One of the reasons Java ME died was because it became impossible to support every single phone out there. Linux is no better if you're a developer.
That's why you won't see companies developing too many proprietary products for linux. People won't pay for software when they're used to getting everything for free, and companies want fixed targets to develop against.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday January 30 2020, @08:27PM (10 children)
What? Strange, I do these things all the time on a Ubuntu based distro. Is something wrong, barbara?
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 31 2020, @01:43AM (9 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 31 2020, @02:41AM (8 children)
Have to agree on that. Linux Mint is a damn-fine distro. It works great - at least it did the last time I had it running. Ubuntu sucks in many ways, and Mint fixes the suck. LMDE, or, Linux Mint Debian Edition is even better, IMO. It doesn't use Ubuntu. LMDE with Mate is the best there is, in that portion of Linux land.
For those of us who are avoiding systemd, we have to go a little further afield. The more-or-less mainstream offerings like Ubuntu and Mint just don't cut it for us. I'm using Artix at the moment, but it seems that MX might have been the better choice.
It may be worth repeating, there is no "best" in Linux. You can either find a distro that does what you want, or you can take a distro that comes close, and make it do what you want. It all depends on how much effort you are willing to put into things.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 31 2020, @03:05AM (7 children)
Have a +1 Insightful. I've had about 50 down-mods today because I dare to say that free software hasn't lived up to anything like its initial promise, that "give away the software and sell support" isn't a viable model when people won't put up with stuff that doesn't just work, and that we've all, myself included, been played as suckers.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Friday January 31 2020, @04:49AM (6 children)
50? Sorry, Barb, 25 of those were probably mine, and they were dealt because you lie. I have not used Windoze since win95. I have always found linux to be more than adequate as an operating system. Yes, there were rough spots with things like proprietary wifi drivers, but linux has always been ahead of Windows on things like usb. I get the idea that you are a disenfranchised proprietary code developer, who cannot understand how someone could possibly do something just for the betterment of humanity, like produce a free and open operating system for personal computers. Perhaps you should have a talk with the TMB on this. He makes a living coding, and has enough free time to support SoylentNews as well. Free software makes all this possible. Now, if you need to use proprietary software, I'm sorry, but you are already screwed. But you probably know that from the accessibility programs you have been forced to use. Free software has more than lived up to its promise, and this despite well-funded programs of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, and Microsoft shills such as yourself. Please stop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @06:54AM (4 children)
I know this will probably be modded down as offtopic or troll or whatever but I have to say it. I read that comment and though it was really good. Then I checked the name and saw "aristarchus" and literally said "holy fuckin' shit" out loud. With a glimpse of the humanity below, my opinion of you has shifted a bit. Well done.
Now, I await your next nonsensical and over the top comment to deposit me back into my comfort zone.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday January 31 2020, @07:27AM
Wait, please read before judging. Most aristarchus posts, and submissions, are exquisitely rational. It is only the attempt to smear my posts that produces the reaction you had. So seriously, read. The TMB, lo these many years ago, thought that I was trying to paint "ironic" libertariantards like him with a broad "Rand Paul" alt-right brush. Turns out, with recent TMB fake news journals, and TMB defenses of the Traitor Trump (IMPOTUS #3!), that once again, like with the heliocentric model, aristarchus is correct.
I only humbly ask, as any and all philosophers do, that you merely listen to my theories, and make up your own mind.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @08:34AM (1 child)
There's nothing stunning or brave about an anti-M$ comment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @08:34PM
Sometimes it's not what you say, it is how you say it. And that was more than just an anti MS comment anyway.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by hendrikboom on Monday February 03 2020, @04:17AM
Aristarchus is quite intelligent and entertaining, though I have my doubts about him being thousands of years old and still alive to post here.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 31 2020, @05:18PM
I have NEVER been a Microsoft shill. I've been the one that's brought linux into the companies I worked at. However, I'm also a realist. People who aren't of a technical bent can't use linux for day-to-day work. This is nothing new. It's been around since the days of DOS. At one business, a financial package was written in DOS, and the finance guy would come to me to complain that the program was broken. I'd watch him fill in all the fields, then complain "see, it doesn't work." "Press ENTER!" This happened once a week for more than a month.
People need consistency. They don't want to have to either figure something out themselves or have to ask someone else. 1,000 distros, each with a slightly different UI, each with the same old collection of software packages, each package having it's own quirks, doesn't cut it for those who, even if the RTFM, wouldn't understand it.
I keep in mind that while I really liked to read the user manuals that came with all my old software; I also knew that almost nobody bothered. I don't expect other users to be as curious. I expect that when something doesn't work, they will look for alternatives.
FOSS doesn't meet the needs of the masses. Every single person I installed linux for went back to Windows or moved on to Apple. And I can't blame them - they have different priorities, they don't want to tinker, they don't want to distro-hop - heck, they don't even want to do a minor upgrade because it might change something.
You know all this. FOSS with 1,000 distros can't address this.
The established players need competition. Real competition. They're not getting it from FOSS. They take what they want, lock it on a server or inside a device, and just keep rolling on.
If Shuttleworth had any insight, instead of trying to ride linux for profit, he would have pulled an Apple - grabbed a copy of FreeBSD and customized it for commercial use, and sold each copy. Trying to be another RedHat making money off support contracts is much tougher - people don't like to pay for support, they don't like products that require ongoing support, and they'll pay up front to avoid having to pay the costs of ongoing support for free software. Not just for operating systems, but all sorts of software.
Programmers also like the consistency of just having one or two target platforms. Remember the hell of web development when there were a ton of browsers, each with their own vagarities, even the same browser on different platforms working differently? Developing for the two big proprietary platforms is easier and more likely to be profitable. It also has the advantage that your competitor isn't going to take your code and sell into the same market - let them develop their own version, and let competition result in evolutionary improvement.
As for accessibility, I tried linux distros that were targeted to the visually handicapped, and they don't work. Every time a package is updated, something breaks, which means that everything breaks. That's the nature of screen reader programs, so good luck with that.
Try the screen reader in the current version of Ubuntu. It can only read the window titles and such from a small selection of software, not the content. It can't read any of what I'm typing. The browser doesn't even exist, so it's a good thing I've been training my eyes not to depend on the fucked-up world of screen readers (both open and proprietary - they're all cursed, just in different ways - but the proprietary ones are better because they have the financial resources that come with being paid, and the financial incentive to keep the money rolling in).
And therein lies a fatal flaw of FOSS. A perverse incentive to make software shitty enough that it requires paid support. That is not "something for the betterment of humanity" any more than making a car that requires a lube job every 2 months is. Even if lube jobs were free, it's still better environmentally to make tie rod ends that never need lubing, and the time lost. So there are fewer college students doing lube jobs, but with far more cars on the road, it's been partially compensated for, and others have gone on to other jobs once they finished college.
People want to keep Win7. I don't know why - I saw it (and my eyes were fine then but it really was nasty for eyestrain) and the whole Aero Vista thing taken to the next level was not for me. It was as ridiculous as the wobbly windows in KDE - cute the first 5 times, and a real pain in the butt thereafter.
Most people have at least one "need to have/want to have/nice to have" that is better met by closed source. There's nothing inherently evil in them choosing a system that meets their needs. Or at least they think meets their needs. I'm not going to tell them they're wrong. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
I would just say that if people think that open source can do better, why is it stuck in 2000? Why is it still not possible to even give it away? How is 1,000 distros with the same software packages any better than 100, or 50, or 10?
How is having a distro with 4 different package managers working out?
But don't worry about it - the down-mods don't bother me. People who get bent out of shape over moderation need to get some perspective - others are entitled to their opinions after all. A robust discussion is far better than sulking over moderation. Like coffee - the more robust the better. Dishwater "coffee" is for the weak, along with tofu and rice cakes.
One day I'll try out some of the other distros suggested during the debate - but they have to be non-systemd, and no Gnome 3. I liked FreeBSD at work when I was in charge of remotely adminning them. If one of them works with my sound card, why not?
But if they don't meet my needs and I have to buy new hardware, it might be Apple - I hated it when someone dumped a Mac on my desk at work because nobody else wanted to use it. It sat there unplugged until one co-worker needed fonts off it. I was on Opensuse, and everyone else was on Windows, and Windows is not an option. Neither is a Chromebook or something based off Android. I want something that isn't riddled with spyware.
It's too bad Shuttleworth shot his wad on Ubuntu; if he had taken FreeBSD and made a proprietary OS, like Apple did, he could have given the incumbents some real competition just from selling operating systems.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday January 31 2020, @02:09AM (1 child)
Gnome 3 is great, and runs really well on Ubuntu.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Saturday February 01 2020, @05:45AM
And runs even better in XFCE or MATE.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday January 31 2020, @02:29PM (1 child)
The trinity desktop environment is old kde, you might want to look for that.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 31 2020, @06:06PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.