MX Linux Forum

I spent the last few weeks on a big adventure. I decided to make real a life's ambition that I've had for years. That was to enter the Linux world, transferring from Windows after many decades with that OS. It was a very tiring process for me, both mentally as well as physically.

I must stress at the forefront that the help that I received from the folks on this Forum has been tremendous and without it I would have given up. I also saw a couple of videos on YouTube about customizing MX Linux 21 (I have version 23) that have been specially informative and inspiring. I made very detailed notes about what I did, mostly the sequence of events, and this was useful to understand what I was doing, to remember it and to have a record for the future. Surprisingly, the most frustrating time was spent trying to get some video management software to work, including Plex. Thankfully this was at the end of my installation and customization process. I had to make a few compromises as regards the folders where data is kept, but nothing serious.

I'm keeping my Windows installation for a while in a dual boot system, but a big milestone was yesterday when I moved my documents, spreadsheets and other files over from Windows to MX. That was a significant leap from one OS to the other and it marked my commitment to start using Linux as my main/only OS. I'm not a professional in any way, but what you may describe as an enthusiast. Indeed in my opinion you cannot be a Windows enthusiast, but you most certainly can be a Linux one!

There's still a very long way to go. I have a thousand questions in my mind and many others that I wrote down. I'm being methodical and I'll try to solve them slowly. I'm relying on you people for a good deal of help, and thank you in advance for your patience with me.

I have quite a few notes to write down about the last two days' installation effort which was hectic and I'll do it before I forget them!

I would like to end this rant with a big THANK YOU to all who helped me!

Congratulations.

Congrats

I too am a Linux enthusiast (self taught since 1997) and I learn something new every day.
I never got that same feeling when I was running windows (3.1 thru 10).

andymx - just posting to echo your "Thanks!"

I am a new MX Linux user who has been at this about a year, motivated by the impending end-of-support for Windows 8/8.1 and by the urge to learn something new that I'd always wanted to learn.

Everyone here has been *amazingly* supportive and encouraging, as well as free with practical guidance and help! It has been a very refreshing and illuminating experience.

After my initial panic and a few stupid questions (that were gently handled), I decided to use the search function as well as 'just trying it' - to find out for myself, and only come asking for help when really stumped and with a list of possible solutions that I'd tried to no avail. I have not seen it happen here, but one can wear out one's welcome if one repeatedly asks for help without doing one's best before putting the problem in front of those who will know the answer.

So I applaud your approach and admire the fact that you've made so much more progress than I, in so much less time.

I'm still running on Live USB. Windows 8.1 is still on my hard drive (like a child who will not give up his blankie) but I have not deliberately booted into Windows for a year. MX does everything I want / need, and running a Live USB means that if/when my old laptop quits, all I need is another cheap laptop with maybe no hard drive or a non-functional one.

So - like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.

Congratulations!

The thing with Linux is, after some time you will start to feel really comfortable with the system. You just know where everything is and how to fix stuff. Even reinstalling won't be intimidating anymore, so you don't have to feel bad when you actually break something.

With Windows this was different. Every change of a major release felt like I had to re-learn a lot of stuff. Functions and settings changed and older programs didn't work properly anymore. When I switched to Linux two years ago I kept my old Windows 7 install around, too. But I actually never booted into it once and wiped it for my Fedora testsystem after one year The only difficult thing is finding replacements for your Windows programs that don't run in Wine, but you have to do that only once.

The community here played a major role in that process for me, too. So that's a good moment for me to say Thanks to everyone here as well :)

Welcome andymx. Love your methodical approach. Just a note: you don't need to move your documents. You can access them from both OSes.

arjaybe wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2023 2:40 pm Just a note: you don't need to move your documents. You can access them from both OSes.

Thanks, I know that I can access my documents and in actual fact I did so several times in the last few weeks. I just wanted to copy them over to MX in order to "mark the moment" of my transition to MX. I'll probably keep Windows running especially as I'm thinking about replacing my laptop with something else. However, Windows hopefully will become my legacy OS.

MadMax wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2023 12:54 pm The thing with Linux is, after some time you will start to feel really comfortable with the system. You just know where everything is and how to fix stuff. Even reinstalling won't be intimidating anymore, so you don't have to feel bad when you actually break something.

"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly."

The Linux philosophy, insofar as it can be considered as such, was inspired by how MINIX was designed. MINIX was based on UNIX, and UNIX was based on a handful of guys who wanted to play a spaceship-flying game on a new machine while avoiding all the mistakes that a multi-user OS called MULTICS made.

One of the nice things about installing Linux on just about anything is that which installer a distro uses becomes irrelevant. Ubiquti or Calameres or what-have-you, I no longer really care. A Linux machine is (a) a file system, (b) a base install of some packages, (c) a kernel, and then (d) a boot loader. Doesn't matter what (a), (b), (c), or (d) are. They can all work together, and that interoperability of components is laudable, when even some BSDs can't mix and match these elements as easily.

Dual booting windows? You haven't really made the change just yet. Windows is enthusiastic simply because there is almost nothing you can't install or tweak (I remember the time I made a list of all the timeserver hosts into a registry file so I could pick between all of them right from the gui- there are a lot btw), but, I saw the writing on the wall years ago with windows and how it was slowly becoming something I did not want to attend to anymore and knew it was just a matter of time before linux was windows-easypeasy to run. The only reason I even bought a separate windows box is so I can use my xerox printer software. That's it. There are a plethora of linux os's that will boot easily but not many you actually want to look at every day.
Glad you made the switch but unless there is some particular software you must have that you can't get in linux you could easily make a sanpshot of mx and reinstall without windows. Linux is more stable than windows ever was so crashing and boot failures are nil. Backing up and restoring is easy if you use clonezilla too. Snapshots work I just like clonezilla more as it will backup any pc running pretty much any os so I can use the same flash drive image for both and don't have to mess around with this or that.

davidy wrote: Sun Oct 08, 2023 9:03 pm Dual booting windows? You haven't really made the change just yet. Windows is enthusiastic simply because there is almost nothing you can't install or tweak (I remember the time I made a list of all the timeserver hosts into a registry file so I could pick between all of them right from the gui- there are a lot btw), but, I saw the writing on the wall years ago with windows and how it was slowly becoming something I did not want to attend to anymore and knew it was just a matter of time before linux was windows-easypeasy to run. The only reason I even bought a separate windows box is so I can use my xerox printer software. That's it. There are a plethora of linux os's that will boot easily but not many you actually want to look at every day.
Glad you made the switch but unless there is some particular software you must have that you can't get in linux you could easily make a sanpshot of mx and reinstall without windows. Linux is more stable than windows ever was so crashing and boot failures are nil. Backing up and restoring is easy if you use clonezilla too. Snapshots work I just like clonezilla more as it will backup any pc running pretty much any os so I can use the same flash drive image for both and don't have to mess around with this or that.

I think that you have got that wrong. Dual booting is a great idea for novices because it affords a working internet connection when things go a bit sideways.

Nope. That's what proper backups are for. When I got my first pc I must have reinstalled 10 times in the first year alone cause I kept crashing it and didn't have a clue on restore from backups. As a general rule unless you are using some weird hardware setup mx just works without crashing or boot failure. Unless there is some actual windows only software he must run why bother with dual boot at all? Make a windows backup and move on to greener pastures. Linux with MX is not another planet it's just a freer more controllable setup. Like anything new it just takes getting used to.

Speaking as a new user of Linux, I think that one simple criterion is the fact that for many years I could live with Windows without using Linux. Now the reverse is true. It's only been a few weeks, but I don't feel at all the need to go back to Windows. I do enter my Windows system rarely, for very specific purposes. However, all my email, Office tools, video watching and audio listening is adequately covered by Linux. The only thing that I miss a little is browsing with Edge. Having said that, I've been using many of the major browsers over the years, starting with Netscape, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and a few other lesser known browsers. Therefore, now using Firefox is not unfamiliar to me. I see that MS-Edge is found in MXPI, but I'm not sure if the experience would be worthwhile. Perhaps I could try it with a Live-USB, because I don't want to taint my working system.
[Excuse me for going off topic]

Off topic? It is your topic. You could "live with windows"? Pretty sure everyone 'could' lol. I myself do miss the ability to tweak and configure literally everything easily in windows. ASIO4all type stuff and all the portable softwares you could run such as Dimension4's time server sync software, like many, you could simply copy the folder and it was now portable. I've tried every desktop you can think of too, even some 3d ones which were pretty cool. Alternative windows desktop environments are neat. But windows is so locked down now if you tried to change the desktop environment you would completely and utterly break it. MS is cloning itself into a google environment and that means "fusing" everything together, conning and confusing the user even more, and just like google, removing your ability to actually control anything unless you hack the crap out of it.
Furthermore there are still tons of great software that are windows only. I run a hacked version of 10 which is awesome and boots in like 5 seconds flat on my UM350 but I only use it when I need to print documents.
I wasn't saying get rid of windows I was more implying it deserves it's own box. For lasers and stuff. In reality it would be nothing to put all the software on the damn printer and just connect. But Nooo. We gotta chase down drivers and bs so it will display correctly when it fact it connects perfectly to begin with. IOW computers are so small and cheap now having one on the printer itself so that all it needs is a display and keyboard/mouse is the solution to the "how do I get the printer to blah blah blah?" question. Basic logistics not applied in real life, on purpose. IOT my arse.

andymx wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 1:09 am Speaking as a new user of Linux, I think that one simple criterion is the fact that for many years I could live with Windows without using Linux. Now the reverse is true. It's only been a few weeks, but I don't feel at all the need to go back to Windows. I do enter my Windows system rarely, for very specific purposes. However, all my email, Office tools, video watching and audio listening is adequately covered by Linux. The only thing that I miss a little is browsing with Edge. Having said that, I've been using many of the major browsers over the years, starting with Netscape, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and a few other lesser known browsers. Therefore, now using Firefox is not unfamiliar to me. I see that MS-Edge is found in MXPI, but I'm not sure if the experience would be worthwhile. Perhaps I could try it with a Live-USB, because I don't want to taint my working system.
[Excuse me for going off topic]

Yes, I often find a test computer that can be banged with a snapshot is best for testing and using some kinds of software.
What is it in specific you miss in Firefox.?
My imagination is not so good, I think it has more than everything. ;-)

We are all different. When I left Windows there was not much looking back. I still have one Windows computer but it is not being used except maybe for backup and format. When I buy a new used computer with Windows I don't bother making a dual boot. I feel a relief giving it all to MX-Linux. :-)

I don't really miss anything in Firefox. I used it for very a long time and I was happy with it. I think it was something about a change in the Firefox engine that would make most of its then current extensions unusable in the future that made me try Chrome. Again, after a while I read positive comments about Edge and I was tempted to try it.

andymx

By the way I am impressed by your speed.
A couple of times I have been thinking that you are about to crash because you configure too much and too fast.
But you are still here, and I am starting to wonder about where you will be in a year from now if you continue.
What are your goals.?
Some really difficult software.?
A lot of clients perhaps.?
When you are ready for a challenge just ask. ;-)

@Jakob77 I may be seen as configuring a lot and maybe too fast, but the reason for that is threefold. Firstly, I have to disengage from Windows because the burden of maintaining two OS would be too much for me, secondly I have a bit of tidying to do with my digital files and also to work on TiddlyWiki which has fallen by the wayside recently and thirdly, I'm enthusiastic about Linux and in particular MX Linux. I should add that the responses to my many queries here have been great and that encourages me even more to do my configuration on and learning about Linux.

Alright, a fourth reason is the fact that I have free time on my hands and that's a big advantage.

I think that my goal should be not to enter into the never ending hunt for the ideal-to-me Linux distro. I may experiment with other distros in the future, but it's not my main aim.

As for challenges, currently as a novice Linux user I feel that I'm facing one of the biggest challenges. I try not to bother other users on this Forum, but it's not easy. there's only so much that one can learn in a short period of time, and I don't like to leave many matters pending until I may be able to solve them by myself in the future. Hence I rely on other users' good faith and willingness to answer my occasionally silly queries.

@andymx wrote:

Hence I rely on other users' good faith and willingness to answer my occasionally silly queries.

As long as they fall within the scope of these forums, there aren't any silly questions.

Yeah but isn't that why I mentioned clonezilla? Make a backup of windows and if the linux fails just clone back to windows. Anyone who doesn't make a backup is doomed to failure, eventually. I thought this was obvious but window and backups don't usually go together so it should never be overlooked or ignored.

@andymx

Late to the party, but:

Good on You

Yes, the Forum is AWESOME

Keep Up the Good Work!