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Ubuntu 14.04 as OS

 
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HI all,

I am currently running a dual boot in my system (Windows 7 and Ubuntu 14.04). Recently I am using only Ubuntu and I never go to windows. I use only windows for some specific softwares as Photoshop. My laptop's space is now reducing. I am thinking of removing Windows completely from my system. What do you people think about this? What will be the advantages and disadvantages of removing windows completely?
 
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Partheban Udayakumar wrote:I am thinking of removing Windows completely from my system. What do you people think about this?


That's like asking what will be the advantages of proper diet, no vices, regular sleep and a stressless life full of hot women and shit loads of money!

Partheban Udayakumar wrote:
What will be the advantages and disadvantages of removing windows completely?


Well the biggest advantage is no need for antivirus!

On a more serious note, I am a regular Ubuntu user and never faced any problems so far.
Considering your photoshop, there is Gimp Also there might be other alternatives to Gimp.
You can also run Photoshop using Wine. Check out http://askubuntu.com/questions/530110/how-can-i-install-photoshop-cs6-on-ubuntu-14-04

The only "complaint" I ever came up with Ubuntu was Unity. But I guess that's a personal preference. For people like me, fortunately it is possible to install Gnome to replace Unity.
 
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Same here. Dual boot but using Ubuntu most of the time, not (yet) close to running out of disk space thankfully.

I guess it depends on what kind of development you do regularly.
I do keep Windows mainly for checking website designs on Internet Explorer. Nowadays MS gives you IE VMs for this, so this too is not really necessary.
I also do a bit of C++ programming with Visual Studio now and then. So that's another reason.

Games is one more. I have a steam account but never really tried gaming at all on Ubuntu (anybody here tried it)?

Why not get a bigger hard disk and transfer your partitions using Clonezilla?
Or transfer your windows partition to an external usb HD using Clonezilla. I believe it'll still be bootable, since the partition's boot sector is also copied, as long as your BIOS supports booting from a USB HD.
 
Karthik Shiraly
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I'll move this thread to General Comp.
 
Partheban Udayakumar
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Karthik Shiraly,
I am playing dota 2 on Ubuntu. I think the performance is greater than windows. Windows start up is no where near to Ubuntu startup. These are few reasons why I want to move to Ubuntu.

Maneesh,
Well said. I am going to move to Ubuntu but just wanted to know if there will be any disadvantages. Can you guide me on unity vs gnome. I have to start studying about Ubuntu. Can you guide me with some links?
 
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Same here, too, although I use Linux Mint 17 (based on Ubuntu 14) rather than standard Ubuntu.

It depends on whether you're sure there is nothing you will need to do with Windows for the lifetime of your machine. I've kept my Windows installation because I occasionally need to use MS Office (LibreOffice still doesn't manage to maintain formats etc properly) and also because my wife has to use Windows for her business so it's helpful to have a backup machine for emergencies. But I hardly ever log into Windows, and when I do, I usually spend the next hour working through all the updates I've missed since last time!

Can you remove some stuff from Windows, de-frag and shrink the Windows partition and allocate the extra space to Ubuntu? That way you can keep Windows in case you need it, but free up more space for your Ubuntu installation.

Also, are you booting via the "legacy" MBR, or are you using the newer UEFI boot mechanism? This is stuff I don't really understand, but you might want to check how removing Windows completely might impact your current boot loader. Windows tends to get its claws into all kinds of places that can make it hard to eliminate, like any household pest. Of course, if you're just going to wipe the machine and install a fresh Ubuntu, then this probably won't matter.

Finally, if you think you might occasionally need to use Windows, then sticking with Windows 7 as long as possible might be a good idea because Windows 8.x sucks, and Windows 10 still isn't really stable yet, despite Microsoft's constant efforts to force people to install it ASAP.
 
chris webster
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Maneesh Godbole wrote:The only "complaint" I ever came up with Ubuntu was Unity. But I guess that's a personal preference. For people like me, fortunately it is possible to install Gnome to replace Unity.


Yeah, Unity stinks, which is why I use Linux Mint 17 which is based on Ubuntu 14 so you have all the advantages of Ubuntu but you still have a sensible desktop by default. Mint also includes some useful extras by default (codecs used to be a problem with base Ubuntu) and you have access to all the usual Ubuntu repositories etc.

The only problem I've had with Mint was this week when I was trying to install Linux to dual-boot on some new laptops at work. These machines have 4K Ultra HD screens, and Mint just couldn't cope (not sure why as I couldn't even log in to check the settings), so we had to switch to Ubuntu 14 instead. Next job: replace the Unity desktop!
 
Maneesh Godbole
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Partheban Udayakumar wrote:Can you guide me on unity vs gnome. I have to start studying about Ubuntu. Can you guide me with some links?


Use google! Unity vs Gnome

chris webster wrote:because I occasionally need to use MS Office (LibreOffice still doesn't manage to maintain formats etc properly)


Agreed. Nowadays I find myself using Google docs more and more, especially when I need to share. Clubbed with google drive it serves all my needs. But then I am not a documentation guy and YMMV.

chris webster wrote:Yeah, Unity stinks, which is why I use Linux Mint 17


What's their release cycle? New OS every 6 months like Ubuntu? Frequent updates is something which I am not really keen on.
 
Partheban Udayakumar
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chris webster,
As you said windows 8.x sucks, I don't have belief on Windows 10. Why should I pay money when I get something more awesome for free.I don't know how I boot. How could I find that out? I don't think I will flash the entire laptop, I would like to remove only Windows.

Maneesh,
Thanks will follow the link.
 
chris webster
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Maneesh Godbole wrote:What's their release cycle? New OS every 6 months like Ubuntu? Frequent updates is something which I am not really keen on.


Looking at the posts on this blog from the Mint people, it seems like the major release is based on Ubuntu LTS, so Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04 and Mint 18 will be based on Ubuntu 16.04. There's also a Wikipedia list of Mint releases and corresponding Ubuntu versions here.

The Mint Community FAQ on upgrades (written by Clem, the Mint project founder) says:


A new version of Linux Mint is released every 6 months. It usually comes with new features and improvements but there's nothing wrong with sticking with the release you already have. In fact, you could skip many releases and stick with the version that works for you.

Each release receives bug fixes and security updates for about 18 months (or 3 years in the case of "Long Term Support" releases such as Linux Mint 13). The development team is also focused on the latest release. If bug fixes and security updates are important to you, you should regularly upgrade to the latest releases, otherwise there's nothing wrong with keeping things as they are.


So roughly the same schedule as Ubuntu, I guess. I've done an in-place distro upgrade on Mint a couple of times and it worked pretty smoothly.
 
Maneesh Godbole
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Thanks Chris!
 
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Partheban Udayakumar wrote:I don't know how I boot. How could I find that out? I don't think I will flash the entire laptop, I would like to remove only Windows.

Hold back your horses with deleting something yet. Try to install Oracle VM VirtualBox (it is free), and then install Ubuntu or any other OS you like and give a try for a few weeks to see if you like it.
And likely you're right, the sooner you'll get rid of Windows, the sooner your headache will dissapear.
 
Partheban Udayakumar
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Liutauras Vilda,
Before installing Ubuntu, I actually tried it using VMWare. So I am sure that I am going to remove windows. Just wanted to know how to remove Windows without flashing laptop. Incase I flash the primary drive, should I stand with 14.04 or should I go for 15.04?
 
chris webster
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I installed Ubuntu 15.10 on a work machine last week, which went OK. But I then discovered I couldn't install some software from the repos, because some third-party software seems to be built using the LTS versions of Ubuntu e.g. 14.04. You can often work around this, but I didn't want to mess around with this stuff at work, so I switched back to 14.04.

If your machine is an older one, as I'm assuming it will be with Windows 7, then it's probably not using UEFI to boot. If you're sure you want to get rid of Windows, then make a backup of everything you want to keep from the Ubuntu installation, just in case things go wrong and you have to re-build your machine from scratch.
 
Partheban Udayakumar
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chris webster,
Thanks. I will try it and let you know how it went.
 
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Just for info.

I cast off Windows quite a few years ago. I still have a Windows (XP) machine on my desktop, but there are only 2 times that it gets fired up, unless someone explicitly pays me to do a job with Windows.

Once a year, when I have to do my taxes. TurboTax is so far into Microsoft's pocket that Intuit's idea of "export to Excel" requires actually having a copy of Microsoft Excel installed on the same computer - they don't export via CSV or XLS files like most apps do.

The other use I have for Windows is that I like on occasion to amuse myself with Microsoft Flight Simulator. There's a Linux flight simulator and supposedly it's pretty good, but I've never felt the impulse to migrate. I don't "fly" that often.
 
Partheban Udayakumar
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Tim Holloway,

Thanks for the info.
 
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