The Plan!

[Ratae]

Yep, I have a plan!

Obviously everyone is desperate to know what my plan is, so I'll tell yer.

This a a plan for rainy cold weekend, probably when the nights have drawn in, there's no sport on the box, and my presence in the bar of my local is not required.

One of those weekends.

Plus, this plan is also in preparation for that day, when uncle Bill, decides to do with W7, what he did with XP. That is to rag, gag, shag and scrag millions of happy users, then send them on their way merrily complaining! ....that day!

Y'see that day will likely be the same day when this W7 user, finally overwrites the drives of his d/top and laptop with Linux...probably Mint.

If so many people can rub nicely along with Macs and Chromebooks, then I reckon that I can manage with Linus Torvald's brain child.

As some of you know, I've put Linux on a few machines, one of which is that battered old 'White Mouse' lappy that was rescued from a skip. Run's on rails too!

Each time I've done it though, I've done a 'clean' install, wiped the drive and installed Linux on a clean hdd.

Well the plan is, that on that 'white mouse' lappy which has Mint 16 on it, to do a 'Fresh' upgrade to Mint 17...I've found a link for the destructions, just hoping that I can follow them ok.

BTW the difference between a 'clean' and a 'fresh' upgrade, is that in a "fresh" upgrade, you use the liveCD of the new release to perform a new installation and to overwrite your existing partitions.

A "Fresh" upgrade consists of the following steps:

Making a backup of the data
Making a backup of the software selection
Performing a fresh installation using the liveCD of the new release
Restoring the data
Restoring the software selection

Anyway that is the plan, at this moment I'm downloading the iso's for Mint 17(32bit)  and (64bit) Then I'll burn the 32bit to disc, and wait for that weekend to test it on the 'white mouse'

The man with a plan is back!

[Deleted]

OK Smartarse, err sorry I mean Ratarse, you mentioned many times in the past about a little netbook with Linux installed.
I have a netbook with XP installed which I no longer use. I used to take it away with me and download and view images taken every day, but no longer need to do that and am wary of using an XP machine anyway. Plus it was very, very slow when using Photoshop.

I'd like to have a go at putting Linux on this netbook but have absolutely no idea how to go about it. Especially as it doesn't have an optical drive.
Is there an idiots guide somewhere that I could follow, step by step, to achieve this ?

[banjo]

You could use an external usb connected optical drive or a bootable flash drive (provided that the bios can be set to boot from usb, but nearly all computers do these days.
Are you thinking that you might try the Gimp?

e&oe

[Deleted]

Thanks Banjo,
I'm not sure what I'd use it for, just an idea to play with Linux and maybe learn a little from it.
Gimp? Well I've used PS for so long, I'm not sure I'd get used to any other imaging software.

[banjo]

When I tried Gimp, it left me baffled. On the other hand it used to be considered as a serious challenger for PS.
Apologies to ratarse because this is way off his thread, and he takes no prisoners!

e&oe

[Ratae]

Aug 19, 2014 18:55:20 GMT @allachie9 said:

I'd like to have a go at putting Linux on this netbook but have absolutely no idea how to go about it. Especially as it doesn't have an optical drive.
Is there an idiots guide somewhere that I could follow, step by step, to achieve this ?

'An idiots guide' eh?

Errr........I dunno! But there will be in a minute when this idiot has written it!

Well all I can do, is to tell you how I did it on my netbook.

Some things you may or will need.

1... A copy of a Linux mint v17 iso file with the 'Mate' desktop, from here..... www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Assuming that your netbook is a 32bit machine, download the 32bit file but not the 'no Codecs' version.

2.....Then you will need a program that will burn an iso to disc (use a dvd)....I use CDburnerXP .. cdburnerxp.se/en/home .. it runs on rails.

3....As it's a netbook, then an external optical drive is needed. It may be possible to put it on a flash drive, I dunno, someone else may help with that!

This will give you a 'live' disc, that's one where the o/s can be run from the disc without being installed on the netbook's hdd, or the option is there to overwrite the hdd.

My advice would be to run it from the disc, see if you like it, then decide.

Everything needed to use the program comes already loaded on Linux distros. Firefox is the default browser and VLC media player, along with others, is already there.

Right then, I'm sure that this idiot has missed summat important in his guide, but that's what the Linux board is for........to ask!

One more thing, I am not, and am never likely to be, an expert on Linux. I am in fact just someone who's gave it a crack, and somehow or other, fumbled my way through.

Up to now at the Squatters, regarding Linux,it's been a case of 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King'

So, if among our posse of new and returning members, any of you know more than me, or even anything at all about Linux, feel free to jump in. You deffo won't be standing on anyo nes toes and certainly not mine. All and any advice welcome.

Our Al has only asked me to help, 'cos I taught him everything he knows about cameras and taking piccies.

[postman]

Aug 19, 2014 20:44:01 GMT @allachie9 said:

Thanks Banjo,
I'm not sure what I'd use it for, just an idea to play with Linux and maybe learn a little from it.
Gimp? Well I've used PS for so long, I'm not sure I'd get used to any other imaging software.

hi, agree with banjo about gimp, it has a learning curve but is seen as the ps alternative on linux.
if you really wanted to have PS on mint, there is software called, wine that can be downloaded.
it acts like an emulator and launchs windows programs into a linux OS.
a little about installing ps into mint/ubuntu here
www.unixmen.com/how-to-install-photoshop-in-ubuntu-and-linuxmint/

btw, i believe, Mr (a member) is a linux user that might offer more

[Deleted]

Thanks Dave and Postie, all excellent advice for me.

As I probably need an optical drive for the netbook, will something like this do -

USB CD Drive
Thanks.

[Ratae]

Aug 20, 2014 10:54:44 GMT @allachie9 said:

Thanks Dave and Postie, all excellent advice for me.

As I probably need an optical drive for the netbook, will something like this do -

USB CD Drive
Thanks.

That is exactly what's needed, it's similar to the one that I use, except for the price. Think mine cost around £60 several years ago.

[mr]

Aug 20, 2014 0:49:15 GMT postman said:

Aug 19, 2014 20:44:01 GMT @allachie9 said:

Thanks Banjo,
I'm not sure what I'd use it for, just an idea to play with Linux and maybe learn a little from it.
Gimp? Well I've used PS for so long, I'm not sure I'd get used to any other imaging software.

hi, agree with banjo about gimp, it has a learning curve but is seen as the ps alternative on linux.
if you really wanted to have PS on mint, there is software called, wine that can be downloaded.
it acts like an emulator and launchs windows programs into a linux OS.
a little about installing ps into mint/ubuntu here
www.unixmen.com/how-to-install-photoshop-in-ubuntu-and-linuxmint/

btw, i believe, Mr (a member) is a linux user that might offer more

Whilst I do indeed use Linux Mint I'm not terribly good at giving instruction as a teacher. May I humbly suggest the Mint forums as being an ideal place to seek advice. They have many sections including ones for Newbies where you can ask anything and you won't be blinded by science. As they say there" Forum rules
There are no such things as "stupid" questions. However if you think your question is a bit stupid, then this is the right place for you to post it. Please stick to easy to-the-point questions that you feel people can answer fast.

URL for Mint Forums is forums.linuxmint.com

[postman]

Aug 20, 2014 20:25:33 GMT mr said:

Aug 20, 2014 0:49:15 GMT postman said:

btw, i believe, Mr (a member) is a linux user that might offer more

Whilst I do indeed use Linux Mint I'm not terribly good at giving instruction as a teacher. May I humbly suggest the Mint forums as being an ideal place to seek advice. They have many sections including ones for Newbies where you can ask anything and you won't be blinded by science. As they say there" Forum rules
There are no such things as "stupid" questions. However if you think your question is a bit stupid, then this is the right place for you to post it. Please stick to easy to-the-point questions that you feel people can answer fast.

URL for Mint Forums is forums.linuxmint.com

hi, apologies for the focus, Mr.
albeit, excellent advice and as always, support is always within grasp

[mr]

No problem, but I'd hate for anyone to think I'm an expert!

[Deleted]

Might I add that this is also a very good place for advice - and you will most likely get a faster response to your queries?

linuxforums.org.uk

I have no connection with the site other than as a registered member and have always found the advice to be accurate and quickly forthcoming - worth a look?

Rich

[Ratae]

Right then, I finally got to put my plan into action. Although yesterday wasn't a cold wet rainy weekend or owt, in fact far from it, I found myself with a few hours on my hands, and with no particular place to go!

So!...I fished out that old skip rescue lappy, and set about upgrading the Linux Mint 16 to the latest Mint 17 LTS version.

The ISO 32bit disc was duly burned, and on my d/top I opened the instructions for carrying out a 'Fresh' install of a new version, over an older one.

First off I connected my external h/d to the lappy, and in there, made a new folder 'Mint Backup'

Then I went to the 'control panel' and in the 'systems' section clicked on the 'backup tool'



There are 4 tabs in there ..

1/...Backup files

2/...Backup Softwear selection

3/...Restore files

4/... Restore softwear selection

Number one is self explanatory, number two backs up the softwear that you have installed from the repositories...in my case this was stuff like 'Deluge' bit torrent, 'AbiWord' text editor and a few others.

So I ran the file backup tool (there were only a few files), and saved them in that folder on the ext.h/d..Then I ran the softwear backup tool, that showed a list of the softwear I'd installed and gave me the option to 'untick' owt that I didn't want to keep. The tool duly saved them to the folder that I mentioned.

Next I put the new ISO disc in the lappy and rebooted it.

As usual, it ran on rails. One thing that did impress me, was how even before it had finished installing, it found the usb wireless adaptor and connected to the internet, none of that peeing around that I've had with older distros.

Once it was up and running and loads of updates were installed, I went to the control panel and ran that backup tool again.

This time, I obviously used the 'restore' tabs, and this was where I hit my first problem.

For some reason that I ain't yet figured out, the files that I'd saved, just would not restore. I tried several times, but without success. However, it did occur to me, that maybe it would have been just as easy to drag and drop the files to the external, then drag them back once the installation was done.

Anyway, I abandoned that, then I clicked the restore the softwear tab.....that worked a treat.

So, that old lappy now has the latest linux mint version on it, and it's looking ok. I've done a bit of tweaking and twirling, just prettying it up a bit but there's lot's more to do.

I've put it away now for a thunk about it, I shall return another day for a bit more tweaking!


Just getting prepared for the day, when me and uncle Bill wave a fond goodbye to each other!