Friendly Linux|Gnu

[FBnil]

Support ended for 98se over a decade ago

Still runs carmageddon2 and doom2 (got mine still operational). Only problem is the lack of good USB stick support...

 

[Yoyobuae]

Still runs carmageddon2 and doom2 (got mine still operational). Only problem is the lack of good USB stick support...

Haha, the days way back when using a USB stick required installing a driver for it. I actually had to carry a floppy with the drivers for it.

 

[comradekingu]

Catering to the root of the argument "better for old hardware". Internet and usb-support is very hard to give up.

 

[levi]

'like a champ' maybe, but comfortably, I doubt. State of the art when that machine was modern would have been MS DOS 6+Win3.11. Win95 basically pushed a lot of people into buying a Pentium machine. My P3 machine had a 'designed for Win98' sticker on it, so running it on a 50Mhz 486 does not sound like fun to me.

 

[rygD]

If running a dead version of Windows is acceptable then running a dead version of Linux should be as well. As indicated, you probably don't need to run an old distro/version on somewhat modern hardware (the type the average person will consider throwing away or replacing because "it is starting to get old", but that was recently being used to do their normal daily stuff).

Half of my old computers won't work with Windows or Linux, but computers that are decades old probably won't be sufficient for an average user today for reasons other than the OS.

 

[Alperoot]

@Alpibrine28

What kind of computer do you have, what happened?
I use devuan, its debian without the systemd. The new kubuntu 16.04 release is probably the one with the least treshold of entry and most ease of use.

What do you rely on in win 8.1?

Well, I have a laptop which has good specs except its graphic card and I tried Kali Linux 2016.1 to dual-boot with it.

What should happen was : after installation (on a 100GB partition on my hard drive, which was a success), it should boot into GNU boot screen and let me choose whether I want to boot Windows or Linux.

What happened is : it booted normally to Windows even though Linux partitions was still there.

 

[rygD]

Well, I have a laptop which has good specs except its graphic card and I tried Kali Linux 2016.1 to dual-boot with it.

What should happen was : after installation (on a 100GB partition on my hard drive, which was a success), it should boot into GNU boot screen and let me choose whether I want to boot Windows or Linux.

What happened is : it booted normally to Windows even though Linux partitions was still there.

You had windows installed first? (I reread your earlier post where you said yes, and you didn't want to touch that. If you are worried about losing your stuff make sure you have backups). I don't use Kali, and I am not in current contact with the people that I know that do, but with most distros it will allow you to set up the partition like you described, and overwrites the MBR. I don't remember all the details right now, but the end result is that GRUB, or whatever, should give you the option to select what you want to boot after you complete installation and restart the computer (assuming GRUB knows where everything is).

I have a few things I would guess might be happening. Maybe GRUB isn't there, so it is still doing the windows stuff. I think you can have that give you the option to boot whatever you have on the disk, but it has been a while since the one or two times I went that route. Another possibility is that Windows is the default, and GRUB is booting it before you notice it (or automatically...it can do that, right?).

I haven't ever encountered the third thing I have in mind, but I have seen it discussed since it seems to be the direction predatory companies are taking the PC market. Out of curiosity, how old is this computer, and does it use UEFI? If yes, have you looked at the settings? I don't really know what to look for, I only suspect that there is a tiny possibility that something may be preventing you from messing with the MBR, either because someone assumes you are too stupid to know what you are doing, or because Microsoft made a deal with them and wants to make sure you stick with Windows.

Lemme look at a few things and I might be back with more.

Edit: I am still trying to read up on UEFI and GPT and such, however I have a nagging thought. Feel free to disregard this. I usually recommend people not use Kali as their main distro. It is probably fine for general use, but it is really designed for a specific set of purposes. Honestly, I only ever used it and Backtrack as liveCD/DVD/USB, and never installed it. Installing it for everyday use makes me think of script kiddies. (Edit edit: I just saw your location...) All of the tools it comes with can be installed on probably any distro.
[doublepost=1464439595,1464437318][/doublepost]Possibly of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Secure_boot_criticism

 

[Klumpen]

Well, I have a laptop which has good specs except its graphic card and I tried Kali Linux 2016.1 to dual-boot with it.

What should happen was : after installation (on a 100GB partition on my hard drive, which was a success), it should boot into GNU boot screen and let me choose whether I want to boot Windows or Linux.

What happened is : it booted normally to Windows even though Linux partitions was still there.

Automatic dual-boot installation worked perfectly for me with WinXP and Mint (until v.17 because of UEFI, deactivating a bootloader check in the bios solved the problem, but that's not what it's about here).
I've heard, that newer Windows versions are actively trying to prevent dual-boot setups by writing in the boot sector with every boot, can somebody confirm this?

 

[PowerGod]

Automatic dual-boot installation worked perfectly for me with WinXP and Mint (until v.17 because of UEFI, deactivating a bootloader check in the bios solved the problem, but that's not what it's about here).
I've heard, that newer Windows versions are actively trying to prevent dual-boot setups by writing in the boot sector with every boot, can somebody confirm this?

As I've tried, it seems it doesn't happen at every boot, but just when Windows is booted, so if you have just installed GRUB, you can see the choices and you can run linux, but when you choose from there to start Windows, the next boot has no GRUB anymore...

EDIT: Debian anyway has an alternative possibility to install GRUB on the uefi configuration for removable drives, because it is not touched by windows, but I still have to try it

 

[Klumpen]

As I've tried, it seems it doesn't happen at every boot, but just when Windows is booted, so if you have just installed GRUB, you can see the choices and you can run linux, but when you choose from there to start Windows, the next boot has no GRUB anymore...

EDIT: Debian anyway has an alternative possibility to install GRUB on the uefi configuration for removable drives, because it is not touched by windows, but I still have to try it

One more reason to not boot any current Windows (post XP).

 

[Alperoot]

@rygD I really don't need Kali Linux necessarily, as you said, every tool it comes with can be installed on normal Debian. (except that those which installs a lot of packages, some of them mess with the system files) Also, secure boot was turned off because I needed to run some linux distributions live. But as for UEFI, I have a few different options on my bootloader. Choosing something other than UEFI makes Windows fail to boot (also doesn't give an option to see bootable devices, only BIOS is working.)
@PowerGod That is what exactly happened to me...
@Klumpen We are not really arguing why Linux is better than post-XP Windows, are we

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Hm, I have Win7 on sda, put all things linux on sdb, boot to MBR and then GRUB on sdb, and all works as intended. (Besides, I fucked up building a kernel with Funtoo and now only Win works. I guess next I'll wipe musl Void and try to get along with Linux with glibc Void first (Can't live w/o my precious Pale Moon (Have I ever mentioned Pale Moon? Yummy Pale Moon. )).)

 

[rygD]

I've heard, that newer Windows versions are actively trying to prevent dual-boot setups by writing in the boot sector with every boot, can somebody confirm this?

I think I have read something like that elsewhere, however I never paid attention since I don't use Windows. It sounds like something Microsoft might do.

As I've tried, it seems it doesn't happen at every boot, but just when Windows is booted, so if you have just installed GRUB, you can see the choices and you can run linux, but when you choose from there to start Windows, the next boot has no GRUB anymore...

That is fucking terrible. There has to be some reason for that other than to prevent dual booting, right? I prefer to think the anti-dual booting is just a convenient side effect for MS that will lead people to assume the other OS sucks and give up, sticking with Windows instead. I already think they do some really bad stuff, and actively making things difficult for users/customers in this way would be yet another thing for that list.


I have been using VMs as an alternative to dual booting for a while. Why are they not good enough for those of you having trouble dual booting? I can imagine demanding games not working so well in a Windows VM, so there is that. I should try that out one day.

 

[PowerGod]

There has to be some reason for that other than to prevent dual booting, right?

To prevent the boot configuration to be corrupted/modified by some malicious software like GRUB

Anyway, if the UEFI specification is followed correctly by the hardware producer, the uefi itself should be enough to manage multi boot partitions, without the need of another boot manager. But seems like most of the uefi around just manages a single configuration.... so that's why we have the situation "Windows XOR Linux"

 

[ZXDunny]

With 4MB ram you can run http://pizza.slitaz.org/tiny/
http://tinycorelinux.net/faq.html#req will run on 28, and that is a modern kernel

Support ended for 98se over a decade ago.

Will that get me a desktop equivalent to 98? It even manages full-window drag and resize, which I was surprised about.

 

[elvissteinjr]

I've heard, that newer Windows versions are actively trying to prevent dual-boot setups by writing in the boot sector with every boot, can somebody confirm this?

I won't go so far as in fully denying it, but I can't confirm it for me. The only time my grub was overwritten was when reinstalling Windows. After restoring it it's been sitting here asking me what to boot into as it should.

 

[PowerGod]

I won't go so far as in fully denying it, but I can't confirm it for me. The only time my grub was overwritten was when reinstalling Windows. After restoring it it's been sitting here asking me what to boot into as it should.

Are you using uefi ? With MBR I have never seen the issue

 

[elvissteinjr]

What issue? iirc Windows installing its bootloader without caring for anything already there is normal behavior. I'm on an UEFI capable board but booting from MBR afaik.

 

[PowerGod]

What issue? iirc Windows installing its bootloader without caring for anything already there is normal behavior. I'm on an UEFI capable board but booting from MBR afaik.

Yeah, that's the confirmation, Windows rewrites the configuration at every boot with UEFI, not just when installing it, with MBR it does it only when installing.

The problem is that Windows is almost always preinstalled in UEFI, and you can't just simply turn it off, because then it won't boot anymore... also you can't use the rescue partition to reinstall it in legacy mode, because mostly it will reactivate UEFI again... and the only way could be to make a physical support with a copy of windows and then do a new installation, loosing every other preinstalled software (that mostly is crapware) and drivers...

 

[Djoga'Ro]

, I've got my precious Pale Moon running on Void.

... I can offer information and help to switch to Linux|GNU for those that do:

I take it, as someone in the process of setting up his first hopefully longer lasting linux install I can ask questions here about things on the way, I don't understand, and you have to help me.

As I understand it, the radeon driver defaults to disabling HDMI audio and I haven't touched a thing... there. How come in alsamixer I've got a card HDA ATI HDMI with 6 S/PDIF items, that I can only mute/unmute? Also, aplay -(l|L) lists 6 HDMI output devices. And why is the driver snd_hda_intel loaded for it? But most importantly, can I get it out of the picture, while still having the graphics card in use that is?

In the meantime I go on reading alsa configuration references.